Saturday, April 11, 2009

When Residents Become Vectors

One pediatric resident recently diagnosed with tuberculosis who traveled to three hospitals for her training (including ours) has caused quite a stir.

Ironically, I am due to receive my TB skin test Monday as part of our annual surveillance program.

-Wes

2 comments:

  1. How did she get that far into her residency without apparently having a TB test?

    Shoot, I did computer consulting at a large charitable residential facility for the developmentally disabled. When I found out I'd be assigned there, I got a TB test and made sure I was up to date on vaccines. I'm not paranoid, I just didn't want to be Typhoid Dilbert...

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  2. I would expect that she acquired TB after earlier testing. There are plenty of places in the US where one may be exposed to TB, even multi-drug resistant TB.

    I hope your TB test was negative. Last month, an ED ended up giving me some Cipro. Turns out that a patient of mine from earlier that night had meningitis. It wasn't a big surprise, but you want to shower a lot and avoid people for a while. Who wants to be responsible for possibly transmitting that?

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