The Importance of an Otoscopic Exam to Diagnose Acute Otitis Media

Acutitis media is essentially an abscess. If you can prove that there is purulent fluid, meaning fluid with white blood cells to some concentration in the middle ear space, then the patient has acute otitis media. I think bulging eardrums are sometimes hard to discern. You don't have depth perception with a monocular otoscopy. So yes, sometimes you can really see this pillowy thing come out and you can say, well, that's definitely bulging. But I don't think it's actually as good a sign as trying to discern what's behind that eardrum.