Rolling the ‘Clinical Dice ‘ and taking a chance with patients is something we should never have to do. Approaching patients methodically, listening to their story, clearing flags, exhaustive questioning, understanding index of suspicion, pattern recognition, masqueraders, when to refer on and seek support are just some of the factors which should help you to gain a comprehensive overview of the person in front of you.

Complex patients challenge most of us on a daily basis and taking time to reflect and turn that into a learning experience that can help our own development and share clinical experience is a valuable skill for healthcare professionals. The aim of the ‘Patient Case Studies’ page is to pull together a variety of clinical scenarios that have been deconstructed, underpinned by evidence and experience to give us food for thought when it comes to our own clinical case load.

Reflection is a key part of our own development and thanks to Mike Stewart of Know Pain for sharing this article on Reflection 2012

The aim is to demonstrate critical thinking used, lessons learned and consideration for the evidence within a complex patient presentation. I am hoping you will also come across the weird and wonderful pathologies that are rare but worth having an awareness of in your tool kit as to recognition and how we dealt with those scenarios at the time. There will be positive and negative outcomes and there will be mistakes that we have made and learns we have taken forward, however the important thing is that we can share those lessons to help promote knowledge in the field.

I hope you enjoy the case studies, take some learning that challenges you to look deeper into your own clinical reflection with the ultimate outcome of improving patient outcomes whilst facilitating your own development.

Check out the case studies here:

Subclavian Steal Syndrome – ‘The Vascular Thief’

 

If you would like to contribute to the case study page, please contact me.

As always, thank you for reading..!