Microbiology Nuts & Bolts
  • Home
  • Basic Concepts
    • What is infection?
    • Normal flora
    • Diagnosing infection
  • Microbiology
    • Basic bacterial identification
    • Interpreting bacteriology results
    • Interpreting serology results
  • Infection Control
    • What is infection control?
    • Universal precautions
    • MRSA
    • Clostridium difficile
  • Clinical Scenarios
    • Respiratory infections
    • Urinary infections
    • GI infections >
      • D&V
      • CDAD
    • CNS infections
    • Skin & bone infections
    • Sepsis
  • Antibiotics
    • Antimicrobial Stewardship
    • How antibiotics work
    • How to choose an antibiotic?
    • Reviewing antibiotics
    • Antibiotic resistance
    • Testing antibiotic resistance
    • Penicillin allergy
    • Theraputic Drug Monitoring
  • Guidelines
  • Lectures & Lecture Notes
    • Medical Students
    • Curriculum for the Foundation Program
    • Foundation Year 1
    • Foundation Year 2
    • Other Lectures
  • The Bug Blog
  • Buy the book...
  • NEW Edition Updates
  • Peer Reviews
  • Want to know more?
  • Contact

Happy World Hepatitis day - July 28th!

25/7/2018

 
Okay so it’s a bit weird “celebrating” a nasty viral infection, but the emphasis of World Hepatitis Day is to draw people’s attention to hepatitis and as you’ll see in the case of Hepatitis C, there’s actually a lot to celebrate, so please read on…
World Hepatitis Day

Read More

Stone the crows! Is that an African virus in America?

18/7/2018

 
The patient was a young woman with the most severe headache she had ever had. She was normally fit and well. Her headache was so bad that she kept a towel over her eyes because the light made it worse. She was noted to have a fever and so a provisional diagnosis of meningitis was made.

Whilst taking her history the doctor discovered that she had returned from the USA at the weekend where she had been visiting family. In particular she had been staying in New York. The doctor consulted “Dr Google” and found mention of a cause of meningitis called West Nile Virus. They called the duty Microbiologist to ask for additional tests on the CSF sent earlier to the lab.

“Stone the Crows” thought the Microbiologist after he got over the slight irritation from the lack of initial travel history documented on the request card. He had to admit though that he was pleased that the doctor had taken the trouble to look into this patient’s story in more detail and then do something with the new knowledge they had acquired.
West Nile Virus

Read More

Something old and something new

12/7/2018

 
“Happy birthday to us, happy birthday to us, happy birthday dear Bug Blog, happy birthday to ussss…”
The Bug Blog is 5 years old! You may not realise it but we have been doing this together for 5 years. In that time we have written over 190 blogs on various microbiology related subjects as diverse as Proteus mirabilis (which Penny thinks smells like chocolate!), necrotising fasciitis and even Poldark’s Putrid Throat. It can be quite a challenge to find the time to write a blog every week but we strive to keep it up (on average we have managed about 40 per year). What makes it worthwhile is all of you out there taking the trouble to read what we have to say. So thank you for staying with us and reading all of our microbiological rambles…
Nuts and Bolts Bug Blog

Read More

Typhlon, isn’t that the coating on my frying pan?

5/7/2018

 
The phone rang for the thirteenth time that morning.
“Could I ask you for some advice about a patient who came in last night please?” asked the very polite haematology junior doctor.

“Go one then” muttered the less polite Microbiologist wondering when he was going to finish looking at the hundreds of emails he had accrued whilst on holiday last week.

“We have a sixty year old lady who came in with febrile neutropaenia last night following her chemotherapy two weeks ago for leukaemia. There was no obvious cause of the fever so she was started on Piptazobactam but she has worsened overnight. She has now started to complain of abdominal pain and we want to make sure we are covering gastroenteritis.”

The Microbiologist pricked up his ears, not only was this a nice potted summary of the problem but the abdominal pain was ringing alarm bells.

“Where’s the pain?” he asked followed rapidly by “how long has she been neutropaenic?”

“Erm…” stalled the junior doctor “worse on the right side and she has been neutropaenic for about two weeks.”

“Okay, this might be typhlitis, this needs immediate action as it’s actually an emergency and after telling your own Consultant here’s what I want you to do….”

​Crikey thought the junior doctor, I only wanted to know what antibiotic to give for gastroenteritis…
Typhlitis

Read More

    RSS Feed

    Facebook has deleted the Microbiology Nuts & Bolts pages - if you want your weekly dose of microbiology then you will need to come here, and we look forward to you continuing to read it!

    Blog Author:

    David Garner
    Consultant Microbiologist
    Surrey, UK

    Please DO NOT advertise products and conferences on our website or blog

    Categories

    All
    Antibiotic Resistance
    Antibiotics
    Basic Concepts
    Clinical Scenarios
    Guidelines
    Infection Control
    In The News
    Microbiology

    Archives

    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013

    Categories

    All
    Antibiotic Resistance
    Antibiotics
    Basic Concepts
    Clinical Scenarios
    Guidelines
    Infection Control
    In The News
    Microbiology

    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.