Cards
An irregular wide-complex tachycardia in a young patient with pre-excitation — AV nodal blockers are dangerous and the treatments of choice are procainamide or synchronized cardioversion. Name the rhythm (be specific).
What is Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome with atrial fibrillation (WPW-AF)?
Named for a 19th-century Czech anatomist, this landmark structure defines the boundary between the upper and lower GI tract.
What is the ligament of Treitz?
Also accept: suspensory ligament of the duodenum
This entity — characterized by erythema nodosum, bilateral hilar lymphadenopathy, and acute polyarthritis — is one of only two presentations of sarcoidosis where tissue biopsy is not required for diagnosis.
What is Löfgren syndrome? (Also accept: asymptomatic bilateral hilar lymphadenopathy / Stage I sarcoidosis)
Testing for this HLA allele is recommended before starting allopurinol in Southeast Asian, African American, and Korean populations to prevent Stevens-Johnson syndrome or toxic epidermal necrolysis.
What is HLA-B*58:01?
This CAP risk-stratification tool — incorporating confusion, BUN >19, respiratory rate >29, low blood pressure, and age >65 — supports outpatient management when the score is 0–1.
What is CURB-65?
Cannon A waves in the neck, variable intensity of the first heart sound, and AV dissociation on telemetry point to this conduction disturbance.
What is complete (third-degree) heart block?
This consensus-based diagnostic framework, now in its fourth iteration, defines IBS by recurrent abdominal pain at least once weekly over three months, associated with changes in stool frequency or form.
What is the Rome IV Criteria?
In respiratory failure from neuromuscular disease, elective intubation is considered when FVC drops below 20 mL/kg IBW, NIF exceeds 30 cmH₂O, or MEP falls below 40 cmH₂O — together forming this named rule.
What is the 20/30/40 rule?
This anti-IgE monoclonal antibody is approved for moderate-to-severe allergic asthma and for chronic spontaneous urticaria unresponsive to antihistamines.
What is omalizumab?
Accept: Xolair
This IV agent with strong MRSA activity is conspicuously absent from pneumonia regimens because pulmonary surfactant inactivates it.
What is daptomycin?
Apical ballooning of the left ventricle with unobstructed coronary arteries following acute emotional or physical stress, mimicking STEMI, characterizes this cardiomyopathy.
What is Takotsubo (stress) cardiomyopathy?
This non-penicillin-based first-line H. pylori eradication regimen combines a proton pump inhibitor with bismuth, a tetracycline, and a nitroimidazole antibiotic.
What is bismuth quadruple therapy?
Accept: PPI + bismuth + tetracycline + metronidazole
The Berlin Definition requires four criteria for ARDS: onset within one week of an insult, bilateral opacities on imaging, edema not fully explained by cardiac failure, and oxygenation impairment defined as a P/F ratio below this threshold while on PEEP ≥5 cmH₂O.
What is P/F ≤ 300 mmHg?
Accept: 300
Recurrent episodes of non-pruritic, non-urticarial angioedema, a low C4, and deficiency of C1 esterase inhibitor define this disorder.
What is hereditary angioedema (HAE)?
Protocols add ampicillin to standard bacterial meningitis therapy for adults of this age group to provide coverage against Listeria monocytogenes.
What is age ≥50 years?
Epsilon waves and T-wave inversions in the right precordial leads, with fibrofatty replacement of the right ventricle on cardiac MRI in a young patient with palpitations and syncope, are hallmarks of this diagnosis.
What is arrhythmogenic right ventricular cardiomyopathy (ARVC)?
Also accept arrhythmogenic cardiomyopathy (ACM), arrhythmogenic right ventricular dysplasia (ARVD), and ARVD/C
When a supine patient tenses their abdominal muscles, pain that intensifies rather than resolves localizes to the abdominal wall — not the viscera. This is the name of that maneuver/sign.
What is Carnett's sign?
A patient who underwent prolonged mechanical ventilation and tracheostomy, now decannulated, develops exertional dyspnea. Spirometry shows flattening of both inspiratory and expiratory limbs of the flow-volume loop. Be specific.
What is post-tracheostomy tracheal stenosis?
Recurrent sinopulmonary infections, low IgG/IgA/IgM levels, bronchiectasis, and increased risk of autoimmune disease and lymphoma characterize this primary immunodeficiency.
What is common variable immunodeficiency (CVID)?
For carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae harboring a KPC enzyme, this is the preferred IV agent — combined with aztreonam when infection was acquired in India or Pakistan.
What is ceftazidime-avibactam?
Accept: Avycaz
Before FDG-PET for suspected cardiac sarcoidosis, patients follow a high-fat, low-carbohydrate diet and hold this substrate — so physiologic myocardial uptake does not obscure active inflammation.
What is glucose (suppression of myocardial glucose uptake)?
On esophageal biopsy, reaching this minimum eosinophil count per high-power field — in the appropriate clinical context — is required to confirm eosinophilic esophagitis.
What is 15 (or more) eosinophils per high-power field?
Accept: 15 or ≥15
In a mechanically ventilated COPD patient with rising peak airway pressures and hypotension due to breath-stacking, an expiratory hold maneuver measures the true alveolar pressure and diagnoses this phenomenon.
What is auto-PEEP (intrinsic PEEP)?
Asthma, marked peripheral eosinophilia, sinusitis, and mononeuritis multiplex — often with positive anti-MPO (p-ANCA) — define this small-vessel vasculitis.
What is eosinophilic granulomatosis with polyangiitis (EGPA)?
Accept: Churg-Strauss syndrome
This 2019 NEJM trial demonstrated that early transition to oral antibiotics was non-inferior to continued IV therapy in carefully selected, clinically stable patients with left-sided infective endocarditis.
What is the POET trial?