Background: The opioid epidemic continues to exert a significant impact on our health care system. Patients with intravenous drug use (IVDU) often develop life threating infections leading to prolonged hospitalizations with poor outcomes. Traditionally, the focus of treatment during these hospitalizations is on the infectious complications with very little emphasis on the underlying substance use [...]

Background: Osteomyelitis is an acute or chronic infection of the bone structures which can be caused by either bacteria, fungi, or mycobacteria. Studies have reported a high annual incident of about 1 in 675 hospital admission in the United States. The overall incident is higher in the male population for reasons unclear and increases with [...]

Case Presentation: A 76-year-old male with metastatic renal cell carcinoma presented to the hospital due to multiple syncopal episodes. The patient was prescribed pembrolizumab by infusion every 3 weeks (last dose was a week and a half prior). His presenting vitals were significant for a heart rate of 30 beats per minute and systolic blood [...]

Background: COVID-19 vaccines have greatly decreased both rate of morbidity and mortality of the COVID-19 infection, but studies have reported myocarditis in patients after vaccination especially with mRNA vaccines. The purpose of this study is to identify if there is a significant correlation between COVID-19 vaccines and myocarditis. Methods: We systematically searched PubMed, Web of [...]

Background: Coronavirus-19 (COVID-19), primarily a respiratory virus, can affect multiple organs, including the heart. Cardiac complications can affect 20-30% of COVID-19 patients and lead to worse morbidity and mortality. Cardiovascular complications can include myocarditis, acute myocardial infarction, heart failure, and arrhythmias Myocarditis is a well-known complication among COVID-19 infections, with limited large-scale studies evaluating outcomes [...]

Background: Hospitalizations related to injection drug use (IDU) are often complicated by complex psychosocial circumstances and behavioral health needs. Despite growing hospitalizations amongst this patient population, little is known about physician experience caring for these patients. Our study aims to explore physician perspectives in caring for patients with IDU to understand the impact of these [...]

Case Presentation: 70-year-old male with remote past medical history of prostate cancer and COPD presented to the emergency department with new onset left side weakness along with left side facial droop. Patient underwent CT scan of the head which was negative and an MRI of the brain which showed multiple bilateral small strokes that raised [...]

Case Presentation: Lyme disease a multisystem disease, occurring globally is caused by the spirochete borrelia burgdorferi and transmitted by the Ixodes tick.(6) The incidence of Lyme carditis (LC) is rare with reported incidences of 4%- 10% but recent studies showing 0.3% to 4% with high grade AV block is the most common presentation.(5,2) We present [...]

Case Presentation: A 29-year-old male presented with a 1-week history of dyspnea, cough, fever, fatigue, myalgia, and chest pain. Medical history included hepatitis C and intravenous drug use with meth, heroin, and suboxone. His last use was 1 week prior to presentation with IV suboxone. Pertinent surgical history consisted of bioprosthetic mitral valve replacement x2. [...]

Case Presentation: A 29-year-old previously healthy male presented to an outside hospital emergency department with two days of flu-like symptoms including fever, chills, nausea, vomiting, abdominal pain, and recurrent episodes of syncope. On arrival, physical exam revealed a heart rate of 50 beats/minute and a blood pressure of 75/53 mmHg, elevated JVP, diminished right basilar [...]