Saturday, December 26, 2009

How To Eyeball A Patient


Gestalt View
As you walk into the room is the patient appear sick or not sick? Distressed? Obtunded? Comatose?
ABCs
Does the patient oxygenate and perfuse?
Vital signs
What are the specific numbers, how was it assessed, and does it correlate with the picture above?
Diagnostics
Find abnormalities. That's really what you are paid for. Some people always have high creatinine or low hemoglobin or whatever, so don't focus on the population mean abnormalities, focus on the patient's abnormalities.
Medications
Will tell you a lot about the protoplasmic substrate (except cancer as chemotherapeutic agents generally don't show up on medication reconciliations) and look out for side effects of therapeutic intervention.