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CASE NOTES
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PROGRAMME INFO |
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Dr Mark Porter gives listeners the low-down on what the medical profession does and doesn't know. Each week an expert in the studio tackles a particular topic and there are reports from around the UK on the health of the nation - and the NHS.
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Contact Case Notes |
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LISTEN AGAIN Ìý30 min |
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PRESENTER |
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"I spend half my week practising medicine and the other half writing and talking about it as a GP in Gloucestershire. Working on Case Notes has been a boon for both me and my patients. One of the principal aims of the programme is to keep our listeners up-to-date with the latest developments in healthcare, and to accomplish that I get to interview a wide range of specialists at the cutting edge of medicine. A rare privilege that ensures our listeners aren't the only ones to learn something new."
Mark Porter
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PROGRAMME DETAILS |
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 Full programme transcript >>
Meningitis
In this episode of Case Notes, Dr Mark Porter examines bacterial meningitis in children.
Bacterial forms of meningitis (more so than the milder, viral types) can be lethal - and none more so than those caused by the meningococcus bacterium.Ìý
The Group B type, the commonest strain of bacterium,Ìýis the most feared, and can present in a number of ways:
It can infect the coverings of the brain causing meningitis or it can infect the blood causing septicaemia without causing meningitis, or it can infect both.
The symptoms of meningitis can be confusing; not every child who's infected will have the classic headache, stiff neck and dislike of bright lights.
Even the rash which parents are warned to look out for by testing with a tumbler isn't a symptom of meningitis per se, but of meningococcal septicaemia - a sign that the infection is already advanced and medical help should be sought without delay.
A full list of warning signs can be found by following .Ìý
In this special programme, Mark visits the paediatric intensive care unit at St Mary’s Hospital in London - a centre of excellence for the treatment of meningitis.
And we hear the stories ofÌýtwo mothers who have lived through the traumatic experience of having a child suffer with the disease.
Next week: ME
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RELATED LINKS
- Dr Mark Porter is patron of the Meningitis Trust
91Èȱ¬ Health: Meningitis
The 91Èȱ¬ is not responsible for the content of external websites
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