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FIRST AID I
FOR
THE i ( )
MEDICINE
i
Clerkship
FOURTH EDITION
Graw
Matthew S. Kaufman Latha Ganti
Dennis Chang Alfredo J. Mena Lora
FIRST AID FOR THE ®
MEDICINE CLERKSHIP
FIRST AID FORTHE ®
MEDICINE
CLERKSHIP
4th Edition
Mc
NewYork Chicago San Francisco Athens London Madrid MexicoCity
Gra w
New Delhi Milan Singapore Sydney Toronto
Hill
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CONTENTS
n II KnowledgefortheMedicineCIerkship
Chapter 6 Cardiology .
Chapter 7 Endocrinology .
Chapter 8 Hematology/Oncology ,
MEDICINE CLERKSHIP
CHAPTER 1 BASICS
OVERVIEW OF HIGH- YIELD TOPICS IN BASICS OF
Daily Tasks
After rounds there will be a “ To Do List” of things that need to get done for
the patient. Your role as a student is to proactively volunteer to do these things
for your patient and go above and beyond to accomplish these daily tasks. You
should also constantly communicate with your team the status of those tasks,
and once you have completed your tasks, ask your team if there is anything else
you can do to help.
Common tasks are:
Calling consults to other Services ( surgery, pulmonology, cardiology, etc.)
Reaching out to consult Services to clarify plans of care
Ensuring radiology tests and procedures are done in a timely manner
Getting medical records from outside hospitals
Calling primary care providers and other doctors who take care of the
patient as an outpatient
Speaking to and educating patients and families
Helping perform procedures (lumbar punctures, paracentesis, thoracentesis )
This is just to name a few. At first, it may not be possible to accomplish these
tasks on your own , so proactively ask your team if they can help or teach you
how to do them. Your goal by the end of the clerkship is to be able to accom -
plish these tasks on your own.
Teaching and Extra Tasks
It will impress your team if you do more than what is asked. Here are some
examples of extra tasks that impress IM teams:
Visiting your patients several times a day to get to know them hetter and
educate them about their disease and medical plan
Calling patients to see how they are doing after discharge
Looking up journal articles that help the team make decisions (see Chapter 5
on evidence-based medicine)
Creating short (less than 5 minutes ) topic presentations on diseases your >
patient is being treated for Q
The information you gather from your patients is the most comprehensive and
accurate history in the hospital, and medical students often have the closest
and most meaningful relationships with patients and their families. These rela-
tionships and information truly make a positive difference in the care patients
receive. Every year, I have a medical student who uncovers a key piece of his-
tory that completely alters our plan of care.
Talk to your patients as much as possible, advocate for them to your medical
team, and make sure they understand their plan of care. It will help them
receive better care and help you become a better doctor.
Before you ask, it is important to think about what your goals are for the rota -
tion . Do you want to work on your patient presentations, physical exam , assess-
ment and plan, procedures, etc.? “Everything” is too broad of an answer, as we
are all trying to improve, but pinpoint a spedfic area that you want to improve.
On day 1 or 2, you must sit down with your intern and resident and attending
and get their expectations. And dont be satisfied with just “ work hard and take
good care of patients.” Ask them spedfically about the following:
PRE- ROUNDS
Table 1-1 provides a to do list for you when you pre- round. When you first
start, pre- rounds may take you more time than you think so leave plenty of
time. When you start out I would give yourself at least 30 minutes per patient.
TABLE 1- 1 . Pre- Rounds >
Ln
un
Tips and Tricks
1 Get signout The intern covering your patients will meet with the
day intern every morning. Make sure you are there to
also hear what happened to your patient overnight.
(This is called signout.)
2 Read all notes for the last 24 A multitude of people will be seeing your patients
hours (physical therapist, social worker, case manager,
nurses). Read their notes. Look out for any event notes,
which are notes from the covering intern describing
significant events that happened overnight such as
hypotension or chest pain.
3 Vital signs • Write a range of vital signs that your patient had,
1 . Temperature including the lowest and highest and most recent
2. Blood pressure (BP) vitals. For example, BP: 111-150/55-85 (122 /75).
3. Pulse (P)
4. Respiratory rate (RR) • Look for overnight fevers.
5. 02 sat
6. Pain score • Don't forget to look at oxygen saturation (02), pain
7. Input and output score, weight, and input (IVfluids, oral intake) and
8. Weight output (urine output, stool, drains, etc.).
4 Medications • As- needed medications: Did the patient take any
pain medications or antinausea medications, for
example? These are also known as PRN ( pro re nata,
Latin for "as needed").
ROUNDS
TABLE 1 - 2. Rounds
1 Present This is your show. Take it and own it. Bring in what you've read
or literature that supports your ideas.
2 Stay involved Askquestions about other people's patients. Not on all of them,
but a few questions that come up.
3 Take notes on all You will likely get asked to do something for other patients, and
patients it helps if you know something about them.
4 Write questions Write down questions you have to look up later or ask later.
8
u
<
AFTER ROUNDS
1. Accomplish your “to do list” from rounds. (see Table 1- 2 )
2. Communicate constantly your progress on the “to do list” with your resi-
dents.
3. See your patients several times a day to update them.
4. Help: After you are done with your tasks, ask the interns and resident if
there is anything else you can do to help. If they say no, there is no need to
continue to ask them. Remember to be proactive. If you know there is a task
to do, tell them that you will take care of it. Interns will often default to just
taking care of it themselves.
5. Read: As with many rotations, there is definitely downtime; make sure you
have reading material or questions you can study.
6. When should I go home? Try to stay until the team does, but if they insist
on you leaving that is OK.
ADMISSIONS
A couple of tips on admissions include the following:
1. Try to see patients on your own: This is the best way to learn and start to
build independent history taking, as well as assessment and plan creation.
However, due to time constraints you will often see patients with your resi-
dent and / or intern. As you become more comfortable with your teams, ask if
you can lead the interview.
2. Time: Remember to give yourself time after interviewing the patient to read
and think about the assessment and plan. Your team may ask you questions
right after interviewing the patient or tell you what the plan is. Ask them if
you could have 30 minutes or an hour to collect your thoughts and notes
and then discuss the plan with them. This time for solo thinking is invalu-
able in your progress toward independently creating assessments and plans.
3. Return visit: Its OK to come back and speak to your patient to get more
information. Residents and attending physicians do this all the time.
DISCHARGES
Approximately 1 in 5 patients is readmitted to the hospital within 30 days after
discharge. Your role in their discharge can help prevent this.
1. Teach: The discharge process is a complex and challenging time for your
patients. The time you spend with your patients communicating to them the
plan and explaining medications can make all the difference.
2. Coordinate discharge: Make sure patients have follow- up appointments
with their primary care provider within 2 weeks of discharge, and make sure
they have all their other follow- ups with surgeons or other medicine special-
ties prior to discharge.
3. Follow up: Give your patients a call after discharge to see how they are doing.
Your team will love hearing any updates on patients they have sent home.
WHAT TO DOATNIGHT
Many times you will come back after a day on the wards feeling physically
exhausted and emotionally spent. As one of the most important clerkships, the
IM clerkship is one where you must use your time efficiently and wisely. One
of the challenges as a medical student on clerkships is finding a way to moti- >
vate yourself to continue to study when you get home while maintaining your Q
well - being. First, find something to do that you like or that helps you clear your
head, even if it s for only 10 or 20 minutes. You need to give yourself time to
unwind. Second, set realistic goals that you can accomplish each night.
WeVe all been there where you are excited to read an entire chapter at night
and because its unrealistic to read 20 pages in 1 hour, you just end up watching
videos and streaming your favorite show. Instead, set up realistic and attainable
goals, like doing 10 practice questions and looking up one literature review or
one clinical trial about the patient you are taking care of. If you do this every day,
in the course of a 2- or 3-month clerkship, you will have done 600 to 1000 ques-
tions and read on 60 or 80 different topics. Question banks prepare you for the
medicine shelf exam, and reading on topics helps you build habits to continue
to learn and improve throughout your career. As far as which question banks to
use, ask higher-level classmates what they used - they are the best resource.
S - SUBJECTIVE
This is any history you get from the patient that day. When you present this
information , you want it to be pertinent to the patients main diagnosis. If they
are here for asthma, then do not go into a long discussion about their issue
with the breakfast they were served.
0 — 0BJECTIVE
This is for data. And during your presentation , do not interpret that informa-
tion. This is for irrefutable facts. The data you need to include in this order is:
1. Vital Signs - Temperature ( and mention any fevers), pulse, blood pressure,
respiratory rate, oxygen saturation
2. Input and Output
3. Physical Exam - When you present, only include pertinent negative and
positive physical exam findings ( e.g., if the patient is here for asthma, the
normal abdominal exam is not pertinent )
4. Labs and Radiology
• If a lab is abnormal, it is always good to mention what it was the day
before and/ or what their baseline lab value is ( e.g., creatinine is 2 , but
yesterday it was 2.6 and their baseline is 1.5)
5. Current Medications ( if this is what your team wants - some teams do not
want the list of medications, as it is on their patient lists )
U
<
A /P - ASSESSMENT AND PLAN
The beginning of this section should always have a summary statement. A
summary statement, or “one-liner,” is a succinct sentence that summarizes the
patients past medical history and the reason for their admission. Each word in
this statement must be pertinent to their diagnoses. Example: 55 -year-old male
with a history of diabetes mellitus, hypertension , former smoker who presented
with chest pain and now found to a have non -ST-elevation ML
Then list their problems by acuity, meaning list the main reason they are still
in the hospital or their chief complaint first and then each subsequent problem
in order of importance. For each problem, there should be an assessment and
plan. Following is a formula for discussing assessments and plans:
Known Diagnosis
Assessment: Status with supporting evidence ( e.g., for a patient with pneumo-
nia - Assessment: Overall improving. Cough improved and white count down )
Plan: Discuss the plan and why you are deciding on that plan ( e.g., change to
CONQUER THE oral antibiotics, as now tolerating PO and anticipate discharge in 1 day)
>H1
The most likely diagnosis is often
the most common diagnosis.
Unknown Diagnosis
Assessment: List your differential diagnosis from what you think is most likely
to least likely. Explain why you think this is the diagnosis or why it isn’t the
diagnosis. A simple format to provide supporting evidence is anything in the
history, physical, labs, or radiology that supports or disproves that diagnosis.
However, it is OK to include zebras
in your differential, just not as the
Plan: Discuss the plan and why you decided on it.
most likely. If you don't go looking
for zebras, then you will never
find one. CONCLUSION
We hope this will help jump -start your experience and maximize your learning
on the IM clerkship. We leave you with one last thought:
“Observe, record, tabulate, communicate. Use your five senses. Learn to see,
learn to hear, learn to feel, learn to smell, and know that by practice alone you
can become [an ] expert.” - William Osler
CHAPTER 2 PHYSICAL
EXAM PEARLS
O V E R V I E W O F H I G H - Y I E L D TOPICS IN PHYSICAL
EXAMINATION PEARLS
Lung Exam 12
Breath Sounds 12
Physical Findings of Common Pulmonary Diagnoses 12
Cardiac Exam 14
Stethoscope Basics 14
Heart Sounds 14
Systolic Murmurs 16
DiastolicMurmurs 17
NeckVeins 18
Abdominal Exam 19
Dermatologic Physical Exam Pearls . 22
a
LUNG EXAM
1 BREATH SOUNDS
2 There are 2 main types of breath sounds that you should know: vesicular and
<
u bronchial breath sounds.
£
E
Vesicular breath sounds: These are the soft breath sounds that are best
heard at the periphery in normal, healthy lungs, most prominently during
inspiration. This is what you hear when you describe the lungs as “clear to
auscultation .”
Bronchial breath sounds: Also known as tubular breath sounds or tracheal
breath sounds, these are more coarse -sounding breath sounds. These can
normally be appreciated by auscultating with the stethoscope placed directly
over the trachea; however, they are abnormal when heard over other parts
of the lung. Bronchial breath sounds are heard when a consolidation or
collapsed lung tissue transmits sound from the trachea or central airway
to the periphery ( thus “tracheal” breath sounds ). They are 96% specific for
pneumonia but only 14% sensitive.
ivitmii
lt is often said that "all that
can be further subdivided into course and fine crackles.
• Coarse crackles: These sound coarser because of a lower frequency ( i.e.,
fewer crackles per second). Most commonly caused by pulmonary edema,
pneumonia, or atelectasis.
wheezes is not asthma." Also
considerCHF.
. Fine crackles: Often heard in interstitial lung disease. “Velcro” rales are
characteristic of interstitial pulmonary fibrosis.
Wheezing: High pitched and continuous, can be only expiratory or both
inspiratory and expiratory. Wheezing represents airway obstruction - the
sound is made by the vibrations of the walls of the narrowed airway. Classic
for asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease ( COPD ) , it can also
be heard in other diseases such as congestive heart failure ( CHF ), sometimes
referred to as “cardiac asthma.”
Rhonchi: Tow pitched and continuous. The pathophysiology is thought to
be similar to wheezing; however, secretions may also play a role. Often heard
in COPD, can also be present in asthma.
Stridor: One other extra sound to know is stridor, which is caused by upper
airway obstruction. This sound is similar to wheezing in that it is high pitched
and continuous. However, stridor is inspiratory, whereas wheezing is either ex-
piratory or both inspiratory and expiratory, and stridor is louder over the neck
than over the lungs.
Any one who experiments with magnets must be struck with the
distance at which one magnet can influence filings or another
magnet. If a layer of iron filings is spread on a sheet of paper, and a
magnet brought gradually nearer from above, the filings soon begin
to move about restlessly, and when the magnet comes close enough
they fly up to it as if pulled by invisible strings. A still more striking
experiment consists in spreading filings thinly over a sheet of
cardboard and moving a magnet to and fro underneath the sheet.
The result is most amusing. The filings seem to stand up on their
hind legs, and they march about like regiments of soldiers. Here
again invisible strings are suggested, and we might wonder whether
there really is anything of the kind. Yes, there is. To put the matter in
the simplest way, the magnet acts by means of strings or lines of
force, which emerge from it in definite directions, and in a most
interesting way we can see some of these lines of force actually at
work.
Place a magnet, or any arrangement of magnets, underneath a
sheet of glass, and sprinkle iron filings from a muslin bag thinly and
evenly all over the glass. Then tap the glass gently with a pencil, and
the filings at once arrange themselves in a most remarkable manner.
All the filings become magnetized by induction, and when the tap
sets them free for an instant from the friction of the glass they take
up definite positions under the influence of the force acting upon
them. In this way we get a map of the general direction of the
magnetic lines of force, which are our invisible strings.
Many different maps may be made in this way, but we have
space for only two. Plate III.a shows the lines of two opposite poles.
Notice how they appear to stream across from one pole to the other.
It is believed that there is a tension along the lines of force not unlike
that in stretched elastic bands, and if this is so it is easy to see from
the figure why opposite poles attract each other.
Plate III.b shows the lines of force of two similar poles. In this
case they do not stream from pole to pole, but turn aside as if
repelling one another, and from this figure we see why there is
repulsion between two similar poles. It can be shown, although in a
much less simple manner, that lines of electric force proceed from
electrified bodies, and in electric attraction and repulsion between
two charged bodies the lines of force take paths which closely
resemble those in our two figures. A space filled with lines of
magnetic force is called a magnetic field, and one filled with lines of
electric force is called an electric field.
A horse-shoe magnet, which is simply a bar of steel bent into the
shape of a horse-shoe before being magnetized, gradually loses its
magnetism if left with its poles unprotected, but this loss is prevented
if the poles are connected by a piece of soft iron. The same loss
occurs with a bar magnet, but as the two poles cannot be connected
in this way it is customary to keep two bar magnets side by side,
separated by a strip of wood; with opposite poles together and a
piece of soft iron across the ends. Such pieces of iron are called
keepers, and Fig. 13 shows a horse-shoe magnet and a pair of bar
magnets with their keepers. It may be remarked that a magnet never
should be knocked or allowed to fall, as rough usage of this kind
causes it to lose a considerable amount of its magnetism. A magnet
is injured also by allowing the keeper to slam on to it; but pulling the
keeper off vigorously does good instead of harm.
If a magnetized needle is suspended so that it is free to swing
either horizontally or vertically, it not only comes to rest in a north
and south direction, but also it tilts with its north-pointing end
downwards. If the needle were taken to a place south of the equator
it would still tilt, but the south-pointing end would be downwards. In
both cases the angle the needle makes with the horizontal is called
the magnetic dip.
PLATE III.
(a) LINES OF MAGNETIC FORCE OF TWO OPPOSITE POLES.
(b) LINES OF MAGNETIC FORCE OF TWO SIMILAR POLES.
In the previous chapter attention was drawn to the fact that there are
many close parallels between electric and magnetic phenomena,
and in this chapter it will be shown that magnetism can be produced
by electricity. In the year 1819 Professor Oersted, of the University of
Copenhagen, discovered that a freely swinging magnetized needle,
such as a compass needle, was deflected by a current of electricity
flowing through a wire. In Fig. 15, A, a magnetic needle is shown at
rest in its usual north and south direction, and over it is held a copper
wire, also pointing north and south. A current of electricity is now
sent through the wire, and the needle is at once deflected, Fig. 15, B.
The direction of the current is indicated by an arrow, and the
direction in which the needle has moved is shown by the two small
arrows. If the direction of the current is reversed, the needle will be
deflected in the opposite direction. From this experiment we see that
the current has brought magnetic influences into play, or in other
words has produced magnetism. If iron filings are brought near the
wire while the current is flowing, they are at once attracted and cling
to the wire, but as soon as the current is stopped they drop off. This
shows us that the wire itself becomes a magnet during the passage
of the current, and that it loses its magnetism when the current
ceases to flow.
Further, it can be shown that
two freely moving parallel wires
conveying currents attract or
repel one another according to
the direction of the currents. If
both currents are flowing in the
same direction the wires attract
one another, but if the currents
flow in opposite directions the
wires repel each other. Fig. 16
shows the direction of the lines
of force of a wire conveying a
current and passed through a
horizontal piece of cardboard
covered with a thin layer of iron Fig. 16.—Magnetic Field round wire
conveying a Current.
filings; and from this figure it is
evident that the passage of the
current produces what we may call magnetic whirls round the wire.
A spiral of insulated wire through which a current is flowing
shows all the properties of a magnet, and if free to move it comes to
rest pointing north and south. It is attracted or repelled by an
ordinary magnet according to the pole presented to it and the
direction of the current, and two such spirals show mutual attraction
and repulsion. A spiral of this kind is called a solenoid, and in
addition to the properties already mentioned it has the peculiar
power of drawing or sucking into its interior a rod of iron. Solenoids
have various practical applications, and in later chapters we shall
refer to them again.
If several turns of cotton-covered wire are wound round an iron
rod, the passing of a current through the wire makes the rod into a
magnet (Plate II.b), but the magnetism disappears as soon as the
current ceases to flow. A magnet made by the passage of an electric
current is called an electro-magnet, and it has all the properties of
the magnets mentioned in the previous chapter. A bar of steel may
be magnetized in the same way, but unlike the iron rod it retains its
magnetism after the current is interrupted. This provides us with a
means of magnetizing a piece of steel much more strongly than is
possible by rubbing with another magnet. Steel magnets, which
retain their magnetism, are called permanent magnets, as
distinguished from electro-magnets in which soft iron is used, so that
their magnetism lasts only as long as the current flows.
Electro-magnets play an extremely important part in the
harnessing of electricity; in fact they are used in one form or another
in almost every kind of electrical mechanism. In later chapters many
of these uses will be described, and here we will mention only the
use of electro-magnets for lifting purposes. In large engineering
works powerful electro-magnets, suspended from some sort of
travelling crane, are most useful for picking up and carrying about
heavy masses of metal, such as large castings. No time is lost in
attaching the casting to the crane; the magnet picks it up directly the
current is switched on, and lets it go the instant the current is
stopped. In any large steel works the amount of scrap material
produced is astonishingly great, hundreds of tons of turnings and
similar scrap accumulating in a very short time. A huge mound of
turnings is awkward to deal with by ordinary manual labour, but a
combination of electro-magnet and crane solves the difficulty
completely, lifting and loading the scrap into carts or trucks at
considerable speed, and without requiring much attention.
Some time ago a disastrous fire occurred at an engineering
works in the Midlands, the place being almost entirely burnt out.
Amongst the débris was, of course, a large amount of metal, and as
this was too valuable to be wasted, an electro-magnet was set to
work on the wreckage. The larger pieces of metal were picked up in
the ordinary way, and then the remaining rubbish was shovelled
against the face of the magnet, which held on to the metal but
dropped everything else, and in this way some tons of metal were
recovered.
The effect produced upon a magnetized needle by a current of
electricity affords a simple means of detecting the existence of such
a current. An ordinary pocket compass can be made to show the
presence of a moderate current, but for the detection of extremely
small currents a much more sensitive apparatus is employed. This is
called a galvanometer, and in its simplest form it consists essentially
of a delicately poised magnetic needle placed in the middle of a coil
of several turns of wire. The current thus passes many times round
the needle, and this has the effect of greatly increasing the deflection
of the needle, and hence the sensitiveness of the instrument.
Although such an arrangement is generally called a galvanometer, it
is really a galvanoscope, for it does not measure the current but only
shows its presence.
We have seen that electro-motive force is measured in volts, and
that the definition of a volt is that electro-motive force which will
cause a current of one ampere to flow through a conductor having a
resistance of one ohm. If we make a galvanometer with a long coil of
very thin wire having a high resistance, the amount of current that
will flow through it will be proportionate to the electro-motive force.
Such a galvanometer, fitted with a carefully graduated scale, in this
way will indicate the number of volts, and it is called a voltmeter. If
we have a galvanometer with a short coil of very thick wire, the
resistance put in the way of the current is so small that it may be left
out of account, and by means of a graduated scale the number of
amperes may be shown; such an instrument being called an
amperemeter, or ammeter.
For making exact measurements of electric currents the
instruments just described are not suitable, as they are not
sufficiently accurate; but their working shows the principle upon
which currents are measured. The actual instruments used in
electrical engineering and in scientific work are unfortunately too
complicated to be described here.
CHAPTER VIII
THE INDUCTION COIL