Common misconceptions and mistakes • Extreme hyperglycemia always implies profound dehydration and is pathognomonic for a hyperosmolar-type presentation • Diabetic ketoacidosis (DKA) always requires aggressive fluid resuscitation • Attributing ketoacidosis…
Common misconceptions and mistakes • Advising your patients to avoid resuscitation based on your assessment of the severity of their baseline cardiopulmonary disease and your “certainty” that resuscitation attempts would…
Common misconceptions and mistakes • Giving three complete, separate physical examinations when presenting a single new admission (emegency department [ED] examination, intensive care unit (ICU) admit examination, and the current…
Common misconceptions and mistakes • All unarousable patients should be immediately intubated because “they are not protecting their airway” • Failing to realize that only a finite number of processes…
Common misconceptions and mistakes • Behaving as if humans are “brittle” with regard to volume status—namely that they transition quickly from total body volume overload to volume depletion (in a…
Common misconceptions and mistakes • Believing that a double-lumen tube is the preferred airway in a patient with massive hemoptysis • Failing to treat patients with bronchiectasis and hemoptysis with…
Common misconceptions and mistakes • Labeling a patient as “failure to wean” because of a rapid shallow breathing pattern (ie, increased rapid shallow breathing index [RSBI]) during spontaneous breathing trial…
Common misconceptions and mistakes • Believing that somnolence makes a trial of bilevel positive pressure ventilation (BiPAP) unsafe • Believing that any hemoptysis, regardless of the volume or context, makes…
Common misconceptions and mistakes • Bronchoscopy with transbronchial biopsies are usually indicated and helpful in the evaluation of diffuse parenchymal lung disease • Video-assisted thoracoscopic surgery (VATS) lung biopsy is…
Common misconceptions and mistakes • Believing that the target of heparin is the already embolized clot (preventing its extension in the pulmonary vasculature) • Missing the most common abnormal chest…
