Med student pt. presentations in ED

[GatorsWearJorts]

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How detailed should these get? When presenting the physical exam, for example, should all normals like anicteric, RRR, NT/ND, etc. be presented or is it ok for students to only report abnormal findings in the interest of time?

 

[Rendar5]

How detailed should these get? When presenting the physical exam, for example, should all normals like anicteric, RRR, NT/ND, etc. be presented or is it ok for students to only report abnormal findings in the interest of time?

for normal parts of the exam, you can comment that overall is normal. Normal breath sounds, normal cardiac and abdominal exams. And highlight the normals. If a normal finding act;ually informs the exam, such as a IV drug user with fever, you can be more specific such as no murmurs heard.


Ultimately your presentation should get across the concept of why the patient is in the emergency room, what you think the likely prelim diagnosis is, what tests need performing, and where the patient is ultimately likely to go.

 

[BADMD]

How detailed should these get? When presenting the physical exam, for example, should all normals like anicteric, RRR, NT/ND, etc. be presented or is it ok for students to only report abnormal findings in the interest of time?

The details will likely change as they get know you. If a fresh MS-3 tell me that some part of the exam is "normal," I'm going to ask what that means. If an MS-4 on their last rotation whom I've worked with and trust says "normal," I'll probably want them to move on.

 

[Arcan57]

I'll ask for pertinent positives and (to a lesser extent) negatives if not presented, then I want to hear differential and most importantly plan.

 

[EM2BE]

Here is another thread from this forum breezing over the topic too:

Presenting Patients