Influenza Case Study: Presentation Outline
The other diagnosis considered was pneumonia, but the patient lacked all of the symptoms corresponding to pneumonia (i.e. cough); similarly, the patient’s symptoms corresponded with the flu (i.e. fever, muscle soreness, lethargy, runny nose, and shortness of breath).
So, for these reasons, the patient was not started on oral antibiotics at the hospital.
Instead, the patient began a course of the aforementioned Tamiflu, despite laboratory supported data confirming that the patient had the flu. The reason for this decision is that laboratory-run viral cultures take 3-10 days to return to the clinician treating the patient, and Tamiflu useful only if administered within 48 hours of flu onset; this means that a course of ...
