An understanding of the fundamental principles of toxicology
and the management of the acutely poisoned patient is an important
but often shortchanged part of the education of medical students.
It has been estimated that up to 5% of all emergency department
visits and hospital admissions are toxicologically related. 1
However, a study of US and Canadian medical schools showed that
an average of less than six hours of formal toxicology education
is offered throughout the four years of medical school
Physicians have increasing access to their own sources of toxicology
data, especially in the setting of the Emergency Department, where
Poisondex is often readily available. Although this is a valuable
tool, it can be a difficult database to navigate if one is not
familiar with it. Even with access to such data, Emergency Medicine
physicians score substantially lower on tests of poison management
than do experienced poison control staff. 2
The data also shows that calls to Poison Control Centers (PCC's)
decrease substantially where PoisIndex is available 3,
and that primary care physicians and rural ED's traditionally
underutilize the PCC's. 4
All of these facts point to the need for better physician education
in toxicology.
The goal of this interactive tutorial is to provide the basic
fundamentals of clinical toxicology and the approach to the poisoned
patient, as well as more specific information on some of the most
significant and frequently encountered poisons. This tutorial
will also serve as an introduction to PCC's, specifically the
Connecticut Poison Control Center (CPCC). Finally, there are interactive
toxicology cases. This tutorial is written primarily for 3rd and
4th year medical students.
