Internal Medicine: Site Visit Summary

The patient case that I presented was a sepsis case- I wanted to present this case because during my time at this rotation, I realized how prevalent sepsis was in internal medicine. The patient that I presented was a 83 year old female with a PMH of DMT2, CAD s/p stent, mild COPD, HTN and HLD who presents to the ED with fever, SOB and a productive cough- all of which had worsened. Her vitals showed that her HR was tachycardic at 111 bpm, febrile at 100.7 F and had an O2 sat of 83% on RA. Based on her vitals and symptomology, the patient had fulfilled SIRS criteria and was therefore admitted for a workup. Her CBC also showed a WBC of 15.33 showing signs of infection and confirming that the patient was in SEPSIS. At this point, the patient had blood cultures and urine cultures sent to the lab and was being treated for sepsis in the meantime with IV fluids and Ceftriaxone. As future PAs- it is so important to be able to recognize sepsis EARLY ON. This is vital to decrease mortality rates or complications caused by sepsis and this case was a testament to that. Going through this case helped me to solidify the SIRS and SEPSIS criteria and helped me understand how a sepsis patient should be stabilized and treated.