A 74-year-old female with a past medical history of hypertension, diabetes, hyperlipidemia, and tobacco use disorder presents with chest discomfort and indigestion ongoing for the past 2 weeks. She reports radiation to the jaw and left upper extremity. Recently, she has been feeling short of breath and has experienced some exercise intolerance, limiting her mobility to just half a block, which she partially attributes to her osteoarthritis. She has been compliant with her home medications, which include antihypertensives, metformin, and a statin. On presentation at rest, her pain is less than it has been in the last couple weeks but is still present. An ECG is obtained (Figure 1).
Lucas Ferreira, MD and Ari Edelheit, MD
Read MoreYou receive a call from the lab for a critical result; your patient has a potassium of 6.0. You order an ECG and then look around for an attending for help. Should you just give the patient sodium zirconium cyclosilicate (commercially known as Lokelma), or should you throw the kitchen sink at the patient? Are those T waves peaked? Panic no longer - let’s talk hyperkalemia.
Samson Frendo, MD and Eric Leser, MD
Read MoreA 49-year-old male with no reported past medical history presents to the emergency department (ED) with a 5-day history of chest pain. He reports a history of intense, substernal chest pain yesterday that was unrelieved, leading him to schedule a clinic appointment for the next day. At the clinic, his primary care doctor advised him to come straight to the ED after completing a “strange EKG.” On arrival in the ED, the patient denies any active chest pain in triage. However, he states that he has some mild pain in the middle of his upper back, “probably just from mowing my lawn the other day.”
Austin Reynolds, DO; Michael Hohl, MD; Taylor Wahrenbrock, MD; Ari Edelheit, MD
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