ABSTRACT
To expand the role of medical technologists in response to legal reforms made in 2015, our hospital devised a system where all laboratory staff would support physicians in clinical tasks and engage in team medicine. To secure staffing for this system, we had all our laboratory staff participate in a seminar specified by the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, which allowed us to place staff in rotating shifts and thus have dedicated staff for influenza testing continually available in the emergency department on days when the hospital is closed for appointments. We decided that these medical technologists would be responsible for all influenza testingrelated tasks beginning with collecting samples from patients with fever suspected of having influenza to reporting test results. This change significantly improved work efficiency and testing turnaround time, and was viewed favorably by physicians, nurses, and hospital administrators.
ABSTRACT
A 72-year-old man who suddenly felt an excessive thirst and developed pollakisuria and high fever on Sept. 29, 2001. A general practitioner initially diagnosed him as having urinary tract infection on the same day. Vomiting and unconscionsnes occurred on Oct. 3. He was brought to our hospital by ambulance. Laboratory data on admission showed plasma glucose of 1110 mg/dl, blood pH of 7.167 and HCO3- of 7.6mmol/L, and positive urinary ketone bodies, compatible with diabetic ketoacidosis. Serum amylase was elevated, but he had no symptoms of acute pancreatitis. Insulin therapy was started immediately and hyperglyvemia was improved. He has never had diabetes mellitus and his HbA1c was normal (5.3%). His urinary C-peptide was very low (2.4 μg/day) and diabetes-related autoantibodies including anti-GAD, IA-2 antibodies and ICA were negative. So his case was diagnosed as fulminant type 1 diabetes mellitus. Fulminant type 1 diabetes, which has been brought to light by Dr Imagawa’s group, is characterized by near-nomal HbA1c despite diabetic ketoacidosis, rapid loss of insulin secretion and absence of diabetes-related autoantibodies.Great care is needed to recognize the patients with fulminant type 1 diabetes among the elderly with symptoms of urinary tract infection. Here, we reported the case of an aged man who developed aypical fulminant type 1 diabetes.