As 2025 concludes, we take a quick look back through our blog’s first year: the hits, the misses and what we have in store for 2026.
Author Archives: Rohit Parthasarathy
Furosemide: Flushing out the Misconceptions
Is it furosemide or frusemide? More importantly, what are its caveats and quirks? The evidence based is shockingly sparse for this ubiquitous medication…
Learning Statistics – Against All Odds… or is it Risk?
Odds ratios and relative risk differ in their derivation and applicability, depending on study types. Hazard ratios are a different world of pain, and a time-dependent measure of rate. Even amongst published literature, these are incorrectly used interchangeably.
The Fast and the Furious: Intravenous Fluid Shift
When administering urgent fluids, prioritize accessible options over central lines. Use larger and shorter cannulas for better flow rates, considering factors like the catheter’s gauge, length, and viscosity of the fluid. While central lines provide reliable access, they often hinder flow compared to suitable cannulas.
Stop trying to make Ammonia happen for hepatic encephalopathy in cirrhosis, it’s never going to happen.
Ammonia’s importance in hepatic encephalopathy is hugely over-estimated. It cannot help to rule in, or rule out, a diagnosis of HE. Most unhelpfully, it is a really difficult test to collect, let alone interpret.
Take Thyroid Function Tests with a Grain of Iodine
There are many caveats to routinely testing hospitalised patients asymptomatic of thyroid pathology – namely those acutely unwell, or recent contrast loading (i.e. almost all of them).
Diagnosis: It’s all about that Bayes
Tests aren’t perfect, and Bayes’ Theorem explains why. A test result’s accuracy depends on how common the disease is before testing. Even a “positive” test can be misleading if the disease is rare. Understanding this helps us avoid overdiagnosis and make smarter clinical decisions.
A blood gas a day keeps the pseudohyponatraemia away
Consider doing a blood gas in hyponatremic patients, and think about pseudohyponatraemia if there’s a difference between formal electrolyte and VBG/ABG sodium. Adjust Na values for glucose. If they had a TURP recently, they’d tell you, it looks painful.
