Sepsis is significantly associated with increased mortality among hospitalized patients. Patients can deteriorate rapidly, leading to septic shock (i.e., tissue hypoperfusion and organ dysfunction despite fluid resuscitation that can ultimately require a vasopressor). Patients immunocompromised from medical conditions such as rheumatoid arthritis with multiple joint arthroplasties are at a major risk of increased infections. Equally, medications that impair the immune system's normal function make this clinical case challenging. As noted in this case of a patient with a complex medical history and nontypical sepsis presentation, early intervention and a multidisciplinary approach to patient care is vital to patient improvement and survival during septic shock.

Primary lung carcinoma with distant metastasis is a life-threatening diagnosis that presents many unique challenges due to the severity of the disease at the time of presentation. We investigated a life-threatening primary lung carcinoma with distant metastasis in a 73-year-old transgender woman, which posed unique challenges due to the advanced stage of the disease at presentation. The patient exhibited nonspecific musculoskeletal and neurological symptoms resulting from the primary lung carcinoma metastasizing to her liver, bones, and brain. We evaluated various imaging modalities that aided in determining the disease's severity and identifying complications related to metastasis. Although these efforts can offer symptomatic relief, the overall prognosis remains poor when metastasis spreads to multiple organs, particularly the brain, as remission may no longer be attainable.

The advents of child abuse and human trafficking in their various forms represent a serious crime and affects virtually every country in the world, where they not only represent an issue of the violation of the basic human rights and dignity of those persons affected but also impacts their families and loved ones who may be inadvertently left behind. While most instances of human trafficking have traditionally involved humans being coercively forced to enter into areas of sex and labor violations, the emerging area of illegal organ trafficking to support a growing need for organ transplantation procedures can now be included. While children and younger adults are the most commonly affected segments of the population for some categories of trafficking, globally human trafficking may impact victims of diverse backgrounds of any age, gender, race, ethnicity, culture, or persuasion, and may present in the clinic accompanied or unaccompanied for urgent care. When presenting, a patient may exhibit cardinal signs, symptoms and clinical stigmata that may be of a suspicious nature and be indicative of further investigation to include reporting the issues to competent authorities especially when the victim is an infant or considered a minor, less than 18 years of age in most countries. Since the health care professional is often in a position to become the first point of contact where symptoms and stigmata of human trafficking, child abuse, and other signs indicative of abuse are apparent, additional modules in health care forensics would be a welcome addition to medical curricula and public health perspectives for physicians and other members of the healthcare team. Thus, the purpose of the present paper was to review the characteristics of human trafficking and abuse, to summarize key areas of legal, medical, and administrative responsibility in order to ensure availability of optimal and appropriate patient-centered care of victims, and to emphasize the need for inclusion of modules in forensic medical education in medical curricula.

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