Today was another eventful day at the office! I worked with both Dr. Villareal and Dr. Zimmerman. I spent most of the morning working with younger patients with Dr. Villareal. There were several one year old check-up’s. This check up is very important because several vaccines are administered and several blood tests are done. The blood test looks for lead levels, hemoglobin levels, and iron levels. The doctors want to look for any diseases from the low iron levels (anemia), and low hemoglobin levels can be a sign of a number of problems. Another interesting appointment involved an abscess on the arm of a patient that looked very irritated, but only needed some anti-biotic cream. After lunch, I worked with Dr. Zimmerman. We saw several different sick calls. There were several cases of strep throat (testing kit pictured above). One case in particular was very interesting. The patient was very sick with vomiting, fever, and headache. They tested negative for strep throat, but had a false positive for the flu. From this false positive, I learned that the CDC does not treat young patients with TamiFlu (most common treatment) because it causes the younger patients to vomit. Dr. Zimmerman really thought it was strep because it is not flu season, and the patients guardian had strep very recently. After the negative strep test, the nurse swabbed the sample on a petri dish and will be looked at tomorrow morning. The patient was sent home with strict orders of rest and Tylenol.
