Where all your ID needs are met! Sort of.
Does anyone remember signing out as residents, how there is always a line that goes something along the lines of “if fever, then culture.” As in fever always means there is an infection, or at least a suspicion of it. Of course, fever means inflammation but infection is a type of inflammation so why not
Coagulase negative staphylococcus are generally skin commensals we tend to ignore when they pop up in one set of blood cultures as they tend to represent contamination of the blood culture bottles rather than true bacteremia. The most commonly seen is Staphylococcus epidermidis. The reason they are called “coagulase negative staphylococcus” is these organisms, compared
Blood cultures are the gold standard for evaluating patients with suspected bacteremia. They are an indispensable tool in evaluating diseases such as infective endocarditis, septic shock, meningitis, and pneumonia. By far, it is relatively simple to interpret the results (its either positive or negative) though whether it represents a clinically relevant entity or contamination is
Dr. Germophile 