Those super-long lab value questions

[schmartdoc]

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The toughest questions for me to handle are the ones with the long vignettes and the even longer list of lab values. Whenever I encounter a questions like this, my ability to reason through them in hampered by how nervous I get when I see them.
Any strategies/suggestions of how to handle them?

 

[thefritz]

The toughest questions for me to handle are the ones with the long vignettes and the even longer list of lab values. Whenever I encounter a questions like this, my ability to reason through them in hampered by how nervous I get when I see them.
Any strategies/suggestions of how to handle them?

I like to look at the last sentence and then lab values first to see what's abnormal. For example sometimes the last sentence will say, what explains this person's hyperkalemia, in which case, you would have wasted time going through the lab values to see that he had hyperkalemia. Look at the sodium quickly, then get the rest of it from the prompt.

I feel like reading this kind of question straight through is not a good idea.