Sepsis: When infection overwhelms - Harvard Health Blog - Harvard Health Publications

Sepsis: When infection overwhelms - Harvard Health Blog - Harvard Health Publications

Sepsis: When infection overwhelms

POSTED SEPTEMBER 19, 2016, 9:30 AM

Monique Tello, MD, MPH, Contributor

When I was a doctor in training I was involved in a very sad case, the unexpected death of a patient, a woman in her fifties who had diabetes.* She had been seen in the clinic and diagnosed with pneumonia only two days before her passing. The diagnosis was correct, as well as the prescribed antibiotics. But she had been sent home, and her condition deteriorated quickly. By the time her family brought her into the emergency room, she was in septic shock.