Acute abdominal pain- how to manage?

[Leena]

Hello, my 32-year-old male friend with no significant past medical history presents to the emergency department with abdominal pain. He states the pain began a few days ago in the right lower quadrant of the abdomen, and now feels as though it is spreading to the mid-abdomen. He describes the pain as coming on suddenly and sharp in nature. Since onset, his pain started to improve until the morning of presentation to the emergency department when it acutely worsened. He says that the pain is much worse with movement. How to manage this?

[Bubun]

@leena Abdominal pain is the most common reason for a visit to the emergency department. Although a common presentation, abdominal pain must be approached in a serious manner, as it is often a symptom of serious disease and misdiagnosis may occur. Abdominal pain is the presenting issue in a high percentage of medicolegal actions against both general and pediatric EM physicians. The modern physician should be humbled by the fact that, despite diagnostic and therapeutic advances (computed tomography [CT], ultrasonography, and laparoscopy), the misdiagnosis rate of the most common surgical emergency, acute appendicitis, has changed little over time