13: A woman with classical migraine
Case 13 A woman with classical migraine Rachel consulted Dr Dewan. She was aged 48 and stated that she had suffered from migraines all her life. She had never previously…
11: A boy with a limp
Case 11 A boy with a limp Teddy is 11. He is brought to Dr Hayward by his mother because he has a limp. He was playing football 2 weeks…
7: A woman with hemiplegic migraine
Case 7 A woman with hemiplegic migraine A 40-year-old woman, Jane, presented to a general practitioner, Dr Allen, on a Monday morning. On the previous Saturday she had been shopping…
3: A woman with chest pain
Case 3 A woman with chest pain Brenda was 40 when she consulted Dr Marks with a cough and right submammary pain. Two weeks previously she had recently returned from…
2: When is a headache abrupt?
Case 2 When is a headache abrupt? Hannah was 36 when she presented to an Out of Hours general practitioner, Dr Walmesley, situated in an emergency department (ED). She had…
3: Bayesian reasoning and avoiding diagnostic errors
Patients with acute appendicitis (100) Patients without acute appendicitis (100) Right lower quadrant pain 80 10 No right lower quadrant pain 20 90 Sensitivity = 80/100 Specificity = 90/100 We…
1: A man with iron deficiency
Case 1 A man with iron deficiency Jeff is a 53-year-old man who returned from a two-week holiday visiting family in Kenya with symptoms of a febrile illness. He had…
2: Causes of diagnostic errors in general practice and how they can be avoided
Initiation of the diagnosis The diagnosis may suggest itself as a ‘spot diagnosis’ as the patient walks through the door – Parkinson’s, depression. The patient may have already ‘self labelled’…
4: A potpourri of advice on avoiding errors
html xmlns=”http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml”> Section 4: A potpourri of advice on avoiding errors We have discussed what is involved in the diagnostic process and where the errors occur. We have discussed systematic…
1: The legal structure of negligence
html xmlns=”http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml”> Section 1: The legal structure of negligence A few words about error If our aim is to reduce the number of clinical errors, then we must explain what we…
