General practice · History + examination

Swollen, aching calf after a long flight - GP

MediumYear 5 · Curtin style · 10 min + 2 min reading · 4 tasks

2 min reading · 10 min station · reminders at 2 min

Station - Instructions for candidate

You are a final-year medical student on placement in a general practice in Perth. Your supervising GP has asked you to see this patient first.

Margaret Kearney, 46, has booked an urgent appointment because her left calf has been swollen and aching for three days. She returned from a trip to London four days ago.

Your tasks are to:

  1. Take a focused history.
  2. Perform a focused examination.
  3. Request any relevant investigations and interpret the results provided.
  4. State your most likely diagnosis and differential diagnoses to the examiner, then outline your initial management plan.
  • You do NOT need to summarise your findings to the examiner.
  • A tape measure is on the table.
  • Please verbalise your examination to the examiner; findings will be provided on request.

This is a 10-minute station, with 2 minutes of reading time.

Ask the examiner

Say what you would examine or request, the way you would in the station. Nothing is named until you ask for it.

Whatever the examiner recognises is revealed below. Or pick a numbered item to reveal it blind.

Investigations

Ask for a category the way you would in the station: “Can I have the obs and a set of bloods?”

Examination

Say what you would examine and how; the examiner reports what you would find.

After treatment

Once you have acted, ask how the patient has responded.