Toxicology 101

Here’s a couple of videos on toxicology. This just goes over the basics. There’s a lot more to learn on each specific toxin. If you want to follow along, you can download this PDF of what I drew (right click it and save it, print it, or do whatever you see fit). Let me know what you think in the comments.

Introduction

Toxidromes

Testing

Decontamination

7 Comments

  1. Dan says:

    Fantastic review of toxidromes! I agree that being able to clinically identify these will give you much more information than a urine drug screen ever could, and will enable you to treat the patient in a more timely manner. Regarding the sympathomimetics (I’m thinking cocaine in particular or PCP), you mentioned giving a benzo to calm them down. I’ve also read haldol is a decent option – would it just depend on the patient’s presenation and how agitated he/she is do you think? This was a good introduction to the concept of chronic ingestion for me as well. Whole bowel irrigation sounds like messy business.

  2. Jenn says:

    Very thorough job — thanks! The mnemonics are great!

  3. ER Jedi says:

    Loved the explanations of all the various gaps. First time I’ve heard a explanation of osmoloar gaps that that didn’t leave me more confused than when I started.

    1. Rahul says:

      Thanks for the kind words, ER Jedi. I am still but a padawan.

  4. Jeff says:

    Great review of a difficult topic for me! As Jenn mentioned previously, the mnemonics are wonderful

  5. Nisha B. says:

    The mneumonics are AMAZING! This has always been a subject of great difficulty, but the ways things are explained so clearly and thoroughly will really help.

  6. Daniel S. says:

    Love the mneumonics. For example, previous step exam review books only covered MUDPILES as the DDX for an anion gap metabolic acidosis. Glad to have METAL ACID GAP in my repetoire! Completely agree that having knowledge of the toxidromes is far more valuable than a UDS.

Leave a Comment

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out /  Change )

Connecting to %s