What is Sepsis Anyway?

Don’t feel bad if you don’t have a really good answer. Most of us don’t. Before I started researching the question two years ago, I didn’t have much of an answer either. People get sick. Some get better. Some get worse. If they get really sick they transition into septic shock. End of story. As an EMS educator, I didn’t go into too much more detail than that, so my own lack of knowledge was carried forward by my EMT students and the cycle continued. Sure, I could turn around and blame my instructor, but here’s a better idea, let’s end the cycle right now. Here is your one stop shopping guide to the pathophysiology of sepsis. Give me a few minutes of your time and I’ll give you a more complete understanding of the etiology that we call sepsis than most of the prehospital folks you’re working alongside. Put your thinking cap on. Here is sepsis in a nutshell. The Sepsis Progression 1) The Source of Infection It all begins with an exogenous pathogen. There’s got to be one. Some outside bad thing, be it viral, bacterial, fungal or parasitic, finds its way into our bodies and takes up residence. And more often than not, you can identify it. Either by digging in for more information about the presenting symptoms or asking questions about high risk possibilities. The source of infection could be a wound, a recent surgical procedure or an exposure to someone with a known infection. Or it could be an exacerbation of any of the run of the mill infec...
Source: The EMT Spot - Category: Emergency Medicine Authors: Tags: EMT Source Type: blogs