Any patient who comes in after "an overdose" should have their paracetamol
measured. Failure to treat a treatable paracetamol overdose is catastrophic
(and expensive).
Otherwise a good standing instruction is to let the on call MLSO tell the
doc what is on offer for a "drug screen" and to have a low threshold for
bouncing him to the duty medic if there are any queries.
> -----Original Message-----
> From: [log in to unmask]
> [mailto:[log in to unmask]]On Behalf Of Grimes,
> Helen
> Sent: 24 July 2000 14:39
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: "Drug Screen requests"
>
>
> We get requests from Casualty for "Drug Screen". It turns out that no one
> knows what the patient may/may not have taken, so we are asked- what drugs
> can we outrule? , this turns out to be serum paracetamol, salicylate,
> tricyclic antidepressant screen and benzodiazepine screen, and
> this is what
> gets done. I am uneasy about this, as the requesting doctor
> wishes to appear
> to outrule what the laboratory can supply and the laboratory appears to be
> doing something. How does anyone else handle this, do they require each
> drug to be specifically named, and has there to be a likelihood
> of ingestion
> before they carry out the analysis??
>
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