I did a ton of microbiology practice cases yesterday and learned a lot – namely, that symptoms are irrelevant.
– “A woman presented to the ER [x] days after beginning her menstrual period..” = Toxic Shock Syndrome. Next!
– “infant” + “floppy” = Don’t let your baby eat honey. Botulism. Next!
– “recently ate a hamburger at a fast food restaurant” = oh good lord, don’t do that! Never do that! Hemorrhagic E. coli. NEXT!
– “prosthetic heart valve” = S. epidermidis. Done!
I wonder if they ever throw irrelevant information into the USMLE questions. They probably should – it would mean I’d actually have to read the symptoms and think logically.
A female patient walking into the ER with a recently-placed prosthetic heart valve, having just eaten at a fast food restaurant and also started her period two days earlier – that sounds a little more true-to-life than the cases above.
I don’t know how I’d simultaneously treat her TSS, EHEC, and endocarditis though.
Action Potential 
Contact with rabbits = tularemia
Raw milk/cheese = Listeria
don’t forget reheated fried rice is b. cereus!
Contact with cats – Toxoplasmosis
Daycare – CMV or Parovirus B19
Sexually active – Gonorrhea, Chlamydia or Syphilis
Cruise ship vomiting = Norovirus
Daycare Diarrhea = Rotovirus
Late Prosthetic Heart Valve Endocarditis = Strep viridans (namely following a dental procedure)
I am in love with these responses.
Goat hair/African drums – Anthrax **
Bird droppings – Chlamydia psittaci (“Bird Shit[=psitt] Fever”)
Daycare diarrhea – Shigella
Construction in the Ohio and Mississippi river valleys – Histoplasma
Southwest US – Coccidioides
Transplant patients – Cytomegalovirus
Heme disorder – Parvovirus
** This one is my personal favorite as I have three African drums, all with goat hide heads, plus an African goat hide dance skirt complete with original goat hair scattered about my room. I’m doomed.
Swimming in the Nile – schistosomiasis.
Tired, enlarged node at base of neck (winterbottoms sign) – east African sleeping sickness
A sexually active, IV drug abusing, neonate presents with abdominal pain, headaches, hematuria, visual changes, ataxia, and a cough. He comes to ER accompanied by his cat, chicken, duck, anteater, and wombat. Which bacteria is the likely cause of his symptoms?
can’t forget werdnig hoffman disease if presented with a floppy baby on usmle
Don’t forget the encapsulated bacteria that get you if you have no spleen.
Oooh! Swimming in freshwater lake- Naegleria Fowleria!
Fun fun..don’t I just love brain destroying parasites. Remind me not to go swimming…
Learned a new one yesterday while studying for Step 1:
-Daycare. Boys. Bloody Pee. UTI. = Adenovirus (seriously! we never learned that.)