One of the great things about being a family doc is the follow-up.
Sometimes, people don’t get better as quickly as you’d expect, so you send out cultures. They aren’t always what you expect:
A lady with a persistent cough despite appropriate therapy did a sputum culture which grew Stenotrophomonas maltophila. Traced back to a humidifier that needed cleaning. She responded well to a course of sulfamethoxasole / trimethoprim.
A teenaged boy came in with what looked like a viral syndrome, with fevers, a spotty rash on the legs, and a nasty pharyngitis. I asked him to wait and see. This turned into a peritonsillar abscess (oh dear, poor kid), and grew Arcanobacterium haemolyticum. Again, the patient did well with drainage and appropriate treatment.
You know it’s an unusual bug when your colleagues all look impressed with the treatment you looked up in your Red Book a few minutes earlier. That’s me, always learning.
