ApEx Pathshala 2024

I was invited to speak at ApEx Pathshala this year and had a ball with the assignment. Conference organizer, Viswanath “Vish” Billa came up with the prompt “A numerical crime scene: When you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable…must be the truth.” He gave Roger Rodby and I, a three-hour-block to put together the edutainment we could come up with.

I leaned into “whatever remains, however improbable must be the truth” and did all three of my cases on pseudo-XXX-emias:

  • Pseudohyponatremia
  • Pseudohyperkalemia (5 different flavors)
  • Pseudohypobicarbonatemia

Roger went with a case of metabolic alkalosis from an ACTH producing tumor and a case of hypophosphatemic rickets. He had a third case of exercise induced hyponatremia that we didn’t get to.

Roger and I decided to ham it up and go full victorian detective. I had Chat GPT make us a victorian detective doctor icon that we used to brand the slides:

Here are a few of my slides

Here is a movie I made of a beat about the correct fluid prescription in acute pancreatitis

Then to full lean into the Victorian Doctor Detective theme we added costumes.

My slides are available, as always, at Sorry-My-Slides-Aren’t Done.

Thanks to Vish and the rest of ApEx for putting on a world-class nephrology conference.