Acute Bronchitis (clinical practice + board review)
Medgeeks with Andrew Reid
Medgeeks
4.8 • 997 Ratings
🗓️ 18 April 2017
⏱️ 18 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
We are going to cover acute bronchitis in it's entirety: definition, etiology, signs, symptoms, differential diagnosis, imaging, labs, and treatment!
Wonder if we should do a chest xray and/or get a procalcitonin level? We discuss that. We'll also discuss when to give antibiotics (controversial topic).
-
Our goal at Medgeeks is to help you live the life you want to live as you navigate a career in medicine.
This looks different to everyone, which is why we take such a personalized approach.
Whether you want to ...
- Stop taking your work home
- Have the skillset to work autonomously
- Improve your work life balance
https://medgeeks.co/about-us
-
Check out our free Facebook group, where we share daily clinical pearls, advice, and practice changing updates:
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | What is going on? Today we're going to be talking acute bronchitis. Now the reason why I want to touch on this topic is because regardless of the specialty that you're in, you're going to encounter a patient that has cough. Now bronchitis, right, we have, we're talking about acute bronchitis. We also have something called chronic bronchitis and chronic bronchitis is part of COPD. Here we're talking acute. Acute means we have an |
| 0:26.0 | infectious process going on, right? So this is the patient that has inflammation of the bronchae. |
| 0:31.8 | This is the lower respiratory tract due to an upper respiratory |
| 0:36.6 | infection. Again, do not confuse this with chronic bronchitis. Now if the infection spreads further into the bronchials and into the avioli |
| 0:46.0 | and at that point we have bronchon pneumonia, right? So we have acute bronchitis, not to be confused with chronic bronchitis infection of the lower respiratory track, |
| 0:57.6 | usually starting from up from the upper respiratory track spreading downwards. |
| 1:01.3 | And if it continues to spread to the bronchiolis |
| 1:04.6 | remember this is now called bronchial pneumonia. Now in order to really have acute |
| 1:09.3 | bronchitis the cough has to be present for five days, right, minimum of five days, and it's usually |
| 1:16.4 | going to be a viral infection in nature. |
| 1:19.3 | Now, what does this mean? |
| 1:21.1 | This means that we do not need antibiotics. Here's a little caveat though. In |
| 1:26.6 | clinical practice you're often going to see providers, clinicians, doesn't matter |
| 1:30.8 | if they're a physician, a PA or a nurse practitioner. |
| 1:34.0 | Oftentimes you're going to see Z-Pax-given. |
| 1:36.0 | This is simply a zetromycin, right? |
| 1:38.6 | Now, I would be lying if I said that I've never done this myself, and there are a couple reasons as to why some clinicians feel like it might be appropriate. |
| 1:48.8 | And according to up to date, it's estimated that 60 to 90% of patients that are coming into the clinic |
| 1:54.6 | within acute bronchitis are given antibiotics. This means we have over |
| 1:58.8 | prescription of antibiotics. This then further leads to antibiotic resistance down the line. |
| 2:05.0 | So let's quickly touch on why this happens. |
| 2:08.0 | For the most part, it's typically to appease the patient, right? |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Medgeeks, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Medgeeks and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.