Inpatient Medicine: Pneumonia

From: Resident Readiness®: Internal Medicine
Inpatient Medicine: Pneumonia
Like

Case:

You are called by the emergency department and told of a 72-year-old male nonsmoker with a history of diabetes, coronary artery disease, and hypertension who presents with pneumonia and needs to be admitted to the hospital. The patient is febrile and tachypneic, has a blood pressure of 145/65, and has an oxygen saturation of 95% on room air. Physical examination is significant for rhonchi in the right lower lung fields, and a chest x-ray shows a right lower lobe infiltrate. Laboratory studies show a white blood cell count of 14,000 and no evidence of acute renal failure. Blood cultures have been obtained and an unknown antibiotic has been started in the emergency department.

Questions:

1. Should this patient be admitted to the hospital?

2. What historical information is needed to make a treatment decision for this patient?

3. What is the best initial treatment if this patient has no antibiotic allergies and no significant contact with the health care system?



Create a Free MyAccess Profile

AccessMedicine Network is the place to keep up on new releases for the Access products, get short form didactic content, read up on practice impacting highlights, and watch video featuring authors of your favorite books in medicine. Create a MyAccess profile and follow our contributors to stay informed via email updates.

Go to the profile of Ramy Abdelkader
over 4 years ago

I think think this patient will have a curb 65 score of 2 which means he can be admitted to floor or discharged on oral Ab....I just want to get more details about his RR and oxygenation

Go to the profile of Shiv Ratan Pathak
about 4 years ago

yes , curb65 , with co morbidities patient needed to be admitted,

Diabetes status

Antibiotic ceftriaxone 20mg/kg in bd dose. Alone or with levoflox750mg.

Go to the profile of Rajarshi Bandyopadhya
about 4 years ago

admit the beacause its high curb 65 so high risk should be getting admitted