Categories: Patient Care

Sepsis occurs when the body responds to an infection with a mix of tissue-damaging inflammation and anti-inflammatory responses. This biological storm can lead to acute organ dysfunction (severe sepsis) and dropping blood pressure that does not respond to intravenous fluids (septic shock).

Reprinted courtesy of UCSF Magazine.

In the pediatric bone marrow transplant clinic, pharmacist Janel Boyle’s past and present collide.

She drifts past young patients—many of them infants and toddlers—and notes their beaming smiles and balding heads. Her gaze shifts to the parents, their...