The Curbsiders Internal Medicine Podcast is a popular medical education series focused on internal medicine topics. Hosted by a team of clinician educators, the podcast delivers expert interviews and discussions covering a broad range of clinical conditions, diagnostic approaches, and management strategies.
The show emphasises evidence-based medicine and practical insights, aiming to support learners at all levels—from students to practising internists—in building clinical reasoning and improving patient care.
Pulmonary embolism assessment requires pre-test probability, right ventricular evaluation and recognition of deteriorating perfusion despite preserved blood pressure. The discussion examines reperfusion evidence, individualised anticoagulation and investigation of persistent breathlessness for chronic thromboembolic disease.
Discharge planning for older adults requires assessment of functional decline, home circumstances, caregiver support and personal priorities. Distinguishing skilled rehabilitation from personal care helps clinicians identify appropriate post-acute services and longer-term living arrangements.
Chronic diarrhoea, malabsorption and weight loss can suggest small intestinal bacterial overgrowth, particularly when bowel transit is altered. Breath testing has important limitations, and recurrent symptoms require careful decisions about investigation and antibiotic exposure.
Cardiovascular prevention extends beyond a single LDL result or 10-year risk estimate. Lifetime lipoprotein exposure, pregnancy-related risk modifiers, coronary calcium, non-HDL cholesterol and apolipoprotein B can refine treatment discussions and interpretation of lipid-lowering response.
Smoking treatment access, anticoagulation, coronary calcium scoring, colorectal screening and lipid lowering illustrate recurring evidence traps: treatment uptake is not persistence, relative effects can obscure small absolute benefits, and reassuring biomarkers or test results do not automatically establish clinical benefit.
Alzheimer's assessment depends on both cognition and everyday function, with selective use of plasma biomarkers; anti-amyloid treatment offers modest slowing rather than reversal and requires careful eligibility assessment, counselling and MRI surveillance for amyloid-related imaging abnormalities.
Peptides, mouth taping, raw milk and other social-media health trends show why clinicians need curiosity alongside critical appraisal, separating testimonials and observational associations from causal evidence while addressing product quality, commercial incentives and potential harm.
Timing and triggers classify dizziness into episodic, acute continuous and chronic syndromes, guiding positional tests, HINTS+ and stroke assessment; management includes Epley manoeuvres for BPPV, early vestibular rehabilitation and combined treatment for persistent postural-perceptual dizziness.
Chronic gastrointestinal symptoms are used to revisit disorders of gut-brain interaction, including irritable bowel syndrome, inability-to-belch syndrome and abdominophrenic dyssynergia. The episode stresses positive diagnosis, targeted testing and the harms of unvalidated microbiome or food testing.
Unexpected hyperkalaemia should be confirmed before treatment is changed, with attention to haemolysis, kidney function, medicines, acidosis and constipation. Hypokalaemia assessment uses urine potassium and magnesium, while management aims to preserve beneficial cardiorenal therapy where possible.
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