A teenager with fever, chest pain, and respiratory distress during the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic: a lesson on anchoring bias.
Publication/Presentation Date
9-26-2020
Abstract
Symptoms of coronavirus disease 2019 overlap with other important illnesses affecting young adults. We report a case of a 17-year old male presenting to the emergency department in the midst of a pandemic with symptoms of coronavirus disease 2019. He had fever, dyspnea, chest pain, and myalgias, with bilateral infiltrates on chest radiograph, and developed septic shock secondary to infectious thromboembolic events. However, his blood cultures grew group G streptococcus secondary to his oropharyngeal infection, and he experienced an infectious thrombus in the internal jugular vein, consistent with the rare but well-described Lemierre's syndrome. This case report calls attention to the importance of maintaining differential diagnoses and thereby minimizing the biases and assumptions that come with clinical care during a pandemic.
ISSN
2688-1152
Published In/Presented At
Karn, M. N., Johnson, N. P., Yaeger, S. K., & Fugok, K. L. (2020). A teenager with fever, chest pain, and respiratory distress during the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic: a lesson on anchoring bias. Journal of the American College of Emergency Physicians open, 10.1002/emp2.12261. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1002/emp2.12261
Disciplines
Emergency Medicine | Medicine and Health Sciences
PubMedID
33043318
Department(s)
Department of Emergency Medicine, Department of Emergency Medicine Faculty, Department of Emergency Medicine Residents, USF-LVHN SELECT Program, USF-LVHN SELECT Program Students
Document Type
Article