History & Physical: full version
I present here the more formal version of a patient assessment, to be used when 1) there is a diagnostic dilemma, and 2) time is your friend, not your enemy. […]
Category Archives: History & Physical Exam
Getting the story, checking the patient
Rapid trauma assessment – Part III: You need some SOAP
Parts I & II. With the luxury of time, equipment, space, and modern technology, your patient assessment will and should be quite complete. Doc Grouch will focus on the fancy; […]
Tuning fork and a stethoscope: Poor Man’s Xray
Inspired by PA4Ortho, I submit the following: Allow me to briefly don the cape of Captain Obvious, and state that Xray machines are somewhat hard to come by out in […]
Rapid trauma quiz – how we scored
Thanks to everyone for coming over and reading the Rapid Trauma Assessment – Part II. We had great participation in the five question quiz at the end, and we want […]
The scratch test. The resource poor mans ultrasound.
Palpation of the belly for pathology is a fine art. One tool for outlining the solid organs of the belly or detecting large amounts of blood vs air is the […]
The rapid trauma assessment – Part II
Part I [Skip to the quiz if you’d like] On his way over to Charlie’s, Bill connected with Reggie Hammond, his neighbor from across the street. Reggie and his wife […]
The rapid trauma assessment – part I
The hurricane came in off the Atlantic and slammed into the Carolina coasts at 2am on Thursday. For once, the weather forecasters were right, and it did not weaken to […]
Anatomy & Physiology Lesson 2.12: Taking blood pressure: when you have all the gear
“So finally, Doc, you are getting around to something useful. Tell me how to take a blasted BP.” Watch this, please: Also, here is a video that reviews what you should hear […]
Anatomy Lesson 2.10 (with a touch of physiology)
We next approach our anatomy lessons using something useful as a framework: vital signs. These are measurements of the fundamental functions of the body, and are: blood pressure, heart rate, […]
Introduction: History and Physical exam
The history and physical is arguably the most important aspect of diagnosis in medicine today, and takes on unique importance in a grid-down scenario, as you will have no other […]
Hogwarts School of Grid-Down Medicine and Wizardry 