In my physical exam class (aka Physical and Clinical Diagnosis or PCD), we take up a case every Monday and then we learn the associated physical exams to preform in order to diagnosis and/or investigate the case further. For example, next week's case is of a "24 year old female with an earache". In order to prepare for next week's class, I have to create a list of questions I would ask this female patient in order to rule-out or rule-in potential diagnoses for her earache. The questions I ask the patient should be in order of importance and each question's answer should give me clues into what is the cause of her earache (i.e. I wouldn't ask a question unless it can rule something in or out, or lead me to ask other questions that are important to solving the case). I also have to prepare a list of the relevant physical exams to preform on the patient to help me diagnose the earache.
The textbook that is helping me prepare the best for my PCD practicals is Advanced Health Assessment and Clinical Diagnosis in Primary Care. It is awesome. Each chapter discusses a common health concern, such as "a sore throat", "an earache", "dizziness", and "sleep problems" (to name a few). The chapter then outlines what questions you can ask the patient in order to learn more about their case, and it outlines why each of these questions are important and what they can tell you about the health concern. This book is seriously the go-to reference for all of my PCD homework. I can also see it being a great reference for when I am in practice.
In terms of preparing what physical exams I want to preform on the patient (and how to properly preform them), the go-to book is Bates'. It is a pretty good reference, but it hasn't grown on me quite like the Advanced Health Assessment has.
'Gotta love good books when it comes to doing homework!
In other book loving news, I've been making time each day to do some leisure, non-naturopathic medicine related reading. I find it to be a great downtime and lets me keep reading (which I love to do) despite the busyness of school.
Yea reading!! Do you think that we should ask Dinkum to compile us a list of good reads with his new exposure to books, books, books?
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Oh yes. He's already recommended one for me to read, but I haven't been able to find it.
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