Sandbox/stem

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Detailed history:
❑ Age
❑ Sex
❑ Past medical history
❑ Past surgical history
❑ Occupational history travel history
❑ Travel history
❑ Medications

Characterize the symptoms:
Characterize the pain:

❑ Onset (eg, sudden, gradual)
❑ Provocative and palliating factors (eg, Is the pain related to your meals?)
❑ Quality (eg, dull, sharp, colicky, waxing and waning)
❑ Radiation (eg, to the shoulder, back, flank, groin, or chest)
❑ Site (eg, a particular quadrant or diffuse)
❑ Pain location may change over time, reflecting progression of disease
❑ Intensity
❑ Time course (eg, hours versus weeks, constant or intermittent)

Other symptoms

Nausea & vomiting
Diaphoresis
Anorexia
Fever
Bloody stool
Vaginal discharge
Penile discharge
Painful urination
Shortness of breath
Altered mental status
Jaundice
Maldigestion
Flatulence
Fatigue
Scrotal pain/swelling
❑ Recent trauma
❑ Mass in any of the quadrants
❑ Symptoms suggestive of sepsis
❑ Symptoms suggestive of common hepatic duct obstruction
❑ RUQ pain with fever & jaundice
❑ Symptoms suggestive of gallstone ileus
❑ Transient abdominal pain with nausea & vomiting
Hematemesis
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Examine the patient:

❑ Vital signs

Temperature (fever)
Heart rate (tachycardia)
Blood pressure (hypotension)
Respiratory rate (tachypnea)

❑ Skin

Diaphoresis
Pallor
Jaundice
Dehydration

❑ Abdomen

❑ Rigidity
Guarding
❑ Abdominal crepitations
❑ Abdominal tenderness
❑ Reduced bowel sounds
❑ Increased bowel sounds
Distension
❑ Detection of masses on palpating the abdomen
McBurney's point tenderness
Rovsing's sign

Psoas sign (suggestive of retrocecal appendix)
Obturator sign
Cullen's sign
Grey-Turner's sign
Digital rectal exam (tenderness may be present in retrocecal appendicitis)
Pelvic exam in females
❑ Signs of sepsis
❑ Cardiovascular system (murmur)
❑ Respiratory system
❑ Anorectal (bleeding)