Common Presentations of Rare Drug Reactions and Atypical Presentations of Common Drug Reactions in the Intensive Care Unit

Clinicians in the intensive care unit (ICU) must be facile in the diagnosis and management of rare disorders. The pace and complexity of patient care in this environment can create a burdensome cognitive load, which increases the risk of errors.1 Diagnostic errors occur in approximately 5% to 20% of all patient encounters because of many systemic factors, and have been discovered in 28% of autopsies of patients who died in the intensive care unit.2,3 The lethality of these errors directly correlates with the level of patient acuity.4 Unintended secondary consequences of diagnostic