How does alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency affect the liver? Pulmonologists frequently test for alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency in patients with emphysema, especially those with early onset emphysema, …

Why do steroids reduce cerebral edema? Steroids are used a lot in medicine. They are prescribed to treat exacerbations of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and asthma, as part of initiation and…

Why is tricuspid valve endocarditis more common in persons who inject drugs? On this episode of the podcast, we continue the discussion of valvular heart disease, moving from the left heart to the …

In this episode, The Curious Clinicians took things to heart and unpacked both why rheumatic heart disease so often involves heart valves, and why the mitral valve is by far the most commonly affec…

Why does meperidine treat rigors? When a patient is having rigors that are causing them to desaturate or become tachypneic, you may have turned to meperidine to stop them. Meperidine is an opioid t…

Why can tick bites cause red meat allergy? When you think about tick bites, usually infections like Lyme disease or babesiosis come to mind. But on this episode of the podcast, we explore a surpris…

Why can heparin cause hyperkalemia? Most of us have seen hospitalized patients with mild but persistent hyperkalemia with no obvious cause. You notice a potassium of 5.3-5.5 mmol/L every day, even …

[Why] is furosemide susceptible to malabsorption from “gut edema”? Much of medicine is taught using clinical pearls. These small bits of free-standing, clinically relevant information a…

Why can hypertriglyceridemia cause pancreatitis? In this episode, The Curious Clinicians dive into a question that occurred to Avi when he was a resident at the VA, sitting in morning report. We br…