Open Season

Flu season is upon us, and with it comes the endless tide of nausea and vomiting, aches and pains, coughs and sniffles.  It'll be nasal swabs for everyone over the next few months, and stocking up on Purell might not be a bad idea.  In the Big City ED we know it's coming.  We're ready.  Bring it.

One of my patients yesterday decided to change things up a bit and try to throw us off our game.  After a week of coming in each day complaining of nausea, she chose to stop in on a Sunday afternoon because she no longer felt fluish, and believed that such a sudden change "needed to be checked out."  I think the chief complaint read something along the lines of "I feel healthy."

In related news, Google now tracks the spread of flu outbreaks by looking for clusters of people searching for for terms like "flu symptoms" at the same time and place (as reported by the New York Times a couple weeks ago).  The search engine expects that it will be able to estimate flu activity up to two weeks faster than traditional systems.  I'll be interested to see how well their data correlates to the CDC's.

Happy handwashing everyone!