About Medical and Clinical Toxicology

Medical toxicologists are involved in the comprehensive high level care of people and patients who come into contact with drugs, substances or other agents that pose a threat to their well being. The following is a brief list of some of these encounters.

Unintentional and intentional overdoses of such agents as:

• Therapeutic drugs including antidepressants (e.g. tricyclics, serotonin reuptake inhibitors, etc), cardiac medications (e.g. beta-adrenergic blocking agents, calcium channel antagonists, cardioactive steroids such as digoxin, etc.), and many others
• Over-the-counter medicines such as aspirin, acetaminophen, ibuprofen, vitamins (e.g. iron supplements, vitamin A, etc.), and more
• Drugs of abuse such as cocaine, amphetamines, opioids, cannabis, etc., along with new and emerging agents of abuse such as Salvia Divinorum, ketamine and much more

Exposure to industrial chemical products and environmental hazards such as:

• Pesticides
• Heavy metals (e.g. lead, arsenic, mercury)
• Household products (e.g. cleaning agents)
• Toxic gases (e.g. carbon monoxide, hydrogen sulfide, hydrogen cyanide)
• Toxic alcohols (e.g. methanol, ethylene glycol) and other solvents
• Other industrial and environmental agents, including radiation exposures

Drug abuse management including:

• Inpatient care for acute withdrawal states from addictive agents such as alcohol and benzodiazepines
• Outpatient Medical Review Officer services for industry and organization

Diagnosis and management of exposures such as:

• Envenomations, such as snake bites, spider bites, scorpion stings
• Marine toxins such as ciguatera poisoning, paralytic shellfish poisoning, tetrodotoxin and many others
• Ingestion of food-borne toxins, such as botulism, scombroid poisoning and more
• Ingestion of toxic plants such as thevetia peruviana (i.e. yellow oleander) and mushrooms such as amanita phalloides (i.e. The Death Cap) and gyrometra esculenta (i.e. the false morel)

• Independent medical examinations, assessing injury or disability resulting from toxic exposures