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Pediatric patients are a unique subset of emergency patients, making up about one-quarter of all emergency department visits. Textbooks regarding the care of pediatric patients are almost universally organized by organ system, which does not facilitate an efficient diagnosis. Taking a case-based approach, Pediatric Emergency Medicine: Chief Complaints and Differential Diagnosis is arranged by chief complaint, using real patient scenarios to help the reader work through the inductive and deductive reasoning needed to assess, evaluate, treat, and disposition pediatric patients with urgent complaints. Cases are structured in the way in which they are presented during medical care, allowing practitioners to become comfortable with the general structure of case presentations: chief complaint, HPI, PMH, ROS, exam, and ancillary studies. This volume also discusses disease processes and their differentiations, providing in-depth knowledge regarding current standards of diagnosis and care.

Recent investigations have demonstrated that the classic hypochloremic, hypokalemic, metabolic alkalosis of hypertrophic pyloric stenosis (HPS) is not a common finding.Some have suggested a trend over time, but none has investigated factors contributing to laboratory derangement, such as duration of vomiting or patient age at presentation. We sought to determine the proportion of patients with HPS with normal and abnormal laboratory findings as a function of year of presentation, duration of vomiting, and patient age.This is a retrospective chart review of 205 patients younger than 6 months with operative diagnosis of HPS at a tertiary, regional pediatric center from 2000 to 2009. We examined the acid-base status and electrolyte levels (serum bicarbonate [CO2], serum potassium [K], and serum chloride [Cl]) at the time of the index visit to determine the proportion of normal, high, and low values for each as a function of year of presentation, duration of vomiting, and patient age.The proportion of HPS cases with normal CO2 was 62%; low serum CO2, 20%; and high CO2, 18%. The proportion with normal serum K was 57%; low K, 8%; and high K, 35%. The proportion with normal Cl was 69%; low Cl, 25%; and high Cl, 6%. Logistic regression analysis demonstrated that the prevalence of metabolic alkalosis increased across the decade, whereas the prevalence of metabolic acidosis decreased and that advancing age was associated with the presence of alkalosis.We observed that normal laboratory values are the most common finding in HPS and that metabolic alkalosis was found more commonly in the latter part of the decade and in older infants.

The aims of the study were to determine the prevalence of variations in the recorded outcomes of clinical evaluations by 2 different physicians during a single patient visit and to comment on observations of physician practices regarding history taking and physical examination. Structured interviews were conducted with both junior and supervising physicians after they had evaluated patients in a pediatric emergency department who presented with complaints of fever (temperature, >100.4°F) in infants younger than 3 months, fever (temperature, >102.2°F) in infants aged 3 to 12 months, headache in patients older than 5 years, abdominal pain in patients older than 5 years, and head injury in patients younger than 18 years. Data were analyzed with descriptive statistics. Most of the data reported by both junior and supervising physicians showed response disagreement. The questions on fever (temperature, >102.2°F) in infants aged 3 to 12 months showed 29% (10/34) disagreement on fever duration and 45% (5/11) on fever height. Questions on abdominal pain in children older than 5 years showed 24% (24/100) disagreement on reporting right lower quadrant pain and 10% (11/106) on right lower quadrant tenderness on examination; however, the discrepancy rates were 56% (56/100) when considering less than complete agreement on all painful sites and 53% (56/106) on all tender sites. Supervising physicians questioned and examined patients presenting with abdominal pain more often than those presenting with other complaints. There are significant variations in the recorded outcome of clinical evaluations by 2 different physicians during a single patient visit. Supervising physicians are more cautious to question and examine patients presenting with abdominal pain compared with other chief complaints.