Ct Patient History Form: Fill & Download for Free

I’m not a doctor, but a PA in Emergency Medicine. I have a few.A young Asian man presented with a several-year history of recurrent and profound hypokalemia (low potassium) causing partial paralysis. While barely able to move, he was surprisingly calm, telling me it had been happening for years, but none of his specialists knew why. He had to be admitted almost monthly for this condition. He also had hypothyroidism.It was a weird case and a quiet night (never say “quiet” in an ER as it will immediately summon busloads of patients), so I consulted Dr. Google. I seriously wasn’t even on a medical search engine, just plain ol’ Google. In the cobwebs of my mind, I knew that hyperthyroidism can cause hypokalemia and paralysis, but not typically hypothyroidism. I came across an article about “Pa Ping.” Here’s an excerpt:Pa Ping, a condition involving hypokalemic paralysis of uncertain etiology, is geographically centered in the Szechuan region of China.I saw the patient again, and ssked if his family lived in or near the Szechuan region. His face lit up and he said, “Um, yeah. Why?” I told him what I found, as well as telling him I could be totally off base, and that the hospitalist would admit him and do more investigation.The patient was thrilled to have a possible answer; the Hospitalist was intrigued and made me feel awesome by saying, “Good pick up.” Before my ego got too excited, my boss told me I spent too much time on that patient. Sigh and LOL. She was right.These are my top two favorite diagnoses, because they made an immediate impact on the survival of my patients:An otherwise super healthy 36-year-old man with no history of recurrent headaches presented with a sudden onset severe headache that was the “worst headache of his life.” If you’re a medical person, hairs in your neck probably just activated. His head CT was normal, but CT technology at the time could miss up to 10% of intracranial bleeds, so it was routine to do a lumbar puncture (spinal tap) to check for blood. I explained this to the patient, who wanted no part of an LP (who can blame him?). I told him that it could be nothing, or it could be a sentinel bleed from an aneurism. Sometimes, if an aneurism patient is really lucky, their aneurism will have a small warning bleed before all hell breaks loose and it kills them. I wrote all of this down on his AMA (leaving against medical advice) form, and told him to come back immediately if he felt worse. If it was a sentinel bleed, he’d most likely come back DOA via paramedics. But, probability being what it is, I hoped I was overreacting. He came back a few hours later (which was about five minutes after his wife read his AMA form) with his wife and announced, “We’re here to get that spinal tap.”That woman saved her husband's life that day, because the LP was positive, and we airlifted him to UCLA for immediate surgery.A six-year-old girl was brought in by her intensely worried father after a mild head injury. She had already been cleared to “treat and street” with no CT by the MD in triage. I did a careful exam, which was normal, and the child truly didn’t fit any high risk criteria, until … her father almost cried telling me how worried he was about his daughter, which greatly concerned me. This is where cultural sensitivity comes in. First, dads rarely cry in the ER. Second, Asian dads tend to be intensely stoic. I believe that parents know their child far, far better than I do, and that their gut level concerns should be respected. I call it Mom Radar. I know, gender bias, but that’s typically the more concerned parent. So I ordered the CT. The radiologist called to report the substantial bleed. Yikes. I transferred the girl out to a tertiary children’s hospital. She had surgery and recovered incredibly well. They also found that she had a blood disorder that set her up for that bleed after a minor trauma. I think my MD boss in triage liked me even more that day. She asked me what in the world made me order the CT, to which I replied, “Asian dads don’t typically cry over a healthy kid.” Her response: “Damn, I’m Asian, good pickup.”(Yeah, “good pickup” is a high compliment.)

Yes, we read those forms all the time. With me, when I see a patient for the first time, I actually pull out that health history form and then go through it with them, line by line, to make sure everything is accurate. It sounds like it would take a long time for me to do that, but it only takes a minute. And if you don't fill it out, then we go through it line by line during the visit and fill it out together. As I've grown in my career, I've found that accuracy and attention to detail in the health history is vitally important. Knowing that you smoke 2 packs of cigarettes per day lets me know that I should pay more attention to that "little cough" that you have. Knowing that you have an iodine allergy clues to in to pre medicate you prior to getting a CT scan so you don't get a rash all over your body.Being completely honest with the health history is necessary for me to do my job, and it also protects you from harm.

Doctors are not villains.I came across this pic on instagram. And it perfectly describes the condition of doctors in today's world.Medical education is costly. Not only in terms of money. Money is secondary. Medical education costs years of study. 5.5 years for MBBS, 3 years for MD/MS, and a few more if someone goes for a superspeciality. The kind of dedication this field demands is beyond imagination. In fact, the first year and final year of MBBS have been said to be 2 of the toughest curriculums of study amongst all courses and all fields.Medical care is costly. The cost of equipments is sky high and ever increasing. Next time you visit a doctor, ask him how much his stethoscope costs. Nearly all doctors I have seen, even medical students, undergraduates or resident doctors, they all use the stethoscope of a standard company, Littman. The price starts beyond Rs. 1000-2000. That's just a small stethoscope. Move on to MRI machines, CT scan machines, X-ray machines, surgical equipment, ventilators. You fall sick, and the doc says lets get some blood tests done. Those biochemical or pathology lab reports require very deftly designed machines, to process the given samples and give the results as fast as possible. And they require a higher amount of maintenance.That is about the material costs. But you can never put a price on skills. I'm a medical student. And learning how to examine a patient, let me tell you, it's not as easy as reading and mugging up a book or two. It is a skill that develops through practice and experience. Everyday in the clinics we take patient histories, present them before the consultants and realise where we made mistakes.Patient care, diagnosis, treatment - these are skill sets very difficult to acquire, and highly underappreciated.The complaint usually goes,“Hey, that guy didn't even examine me properly. He looked at me for 2 minutes and scribbled something and let me go. And guess what, he charged Rs 500 for that. He's looting patients.”Well, it takes years to develop that kind of expertise and ability to examine a patient. Indian doctors go through over 100-200 patients on a daily basis in their OPDs. In no other country does a doctor face that kind of patient load.Bollywood movies have played a huge part in ruining the image of doctors. There's a huge multispeciality hospital, a group of money-minded doctors, depicted as villains, who exploit poor people. A guy is brought in bleeding from his head and they show a huge line saying, “Fill the form then only we'll treat him.” Well, there's something called “TRAUMA AND EMERGENCY CENTRE.” Patients in critical condition get immediate treatment there. And not made to stand in line to fill forms.I agree that there have been cases of negligence. Gross negligence. Or cases of gross cheating on the part of some doctors. Punish them. DON'T GENERALISE THAT OPINION TO ALL DOCTORS IN INDIA. Not all are negligent, not all are cheats.I'm not asking to treat doctors as GODS. I'm asking to treat us as Humans.Or as the picture says, A COMMON MAN. Just like the rest.@Venkatraman Radhakrishnan I hope sir you might have something to say regarding this.