Acute Medicine | Toxicology | Poisoning

Poisoning
Session Overview
Description
This session deals with management of poisonings, initially reviewing acute poisonings as a whole and general measures in managing them, before looking at some important examples of poisonings and their specific management.

Learning Objectives
By the end of this session you will be able to:

• Recognise important clinical signs and symptoms in different types of poisonings
• Explain the role of blood tests in poison cases
• Start the initial management in all types of overdoses
• Manage salicylate, paracetamol, tricyclic antidepressant and gamma-hydroxybutyrate poisoning

A significant number of patients are admitted to medical admissions units with overdoses. Commonly, overdoses are suicidal or accidental. The mortality for such hospitalised patients is around 1-2%.

The initial approach to these patients involves recognising:

• What type of poisoning has occurred
• The severity of the poisoning