The medical school (part of the oldest Catholic- and Jesuit-sponsored university in the USA) works with the University Hospital, 389 beds, and 9 federal and community hospitals.  The Medical Center, the largest in the capital, has a concentrated care center providing emergency, outpatient, surgery, X-ray, and transplant facilitites.  The Lombardi Cancer Research Center is near [...]

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Diarrhoea questions

Diarrhoea is subjective, and can be defined as an increase in the volume, frequency or fluidity of stool relative to normal for the patient. Dysentery is diarrhoea with the presence of blood, mucous and protein in the stool, and often associated with signs and symptoms of systemic illness, e.g. fever, weight loss, anorexia, [...]

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Chest pain questions:

Where –> system involved
What –> pathology
How –> functional limitation
Why –> aetiology

Patient’s age
SOCRATES – site, onset, character, radiation, associated symptoms, time course, exacerbating/relieving factors, and severity.

Character:

crushing or pressure –> cardiac
tearing pain through to back –> dissection
sharp, stabbing –> pulmonary
burning, ‘indigestion’ –> GI

…but be careful with [...]

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Abdominal pain questions:

Where –> system involved
What –> pathology
How –> functional limitation
Why –> aetiology

Patient’s age
SOCRATES – site, onset, character, radiation, associated symptoms, time course, exacerbating/relieving factors, and severity.

Character:
Onset:

constant pain rather than intermittent = worse

Location: correlate with organs potentially affected
Radiation: started centrally and migrated to RIF = appendicitis
Duration: [...]

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Confusion and syncope

Confusion is a symptom, not a diagnosis. Confusion is a recent alteration in higher cerebral functions such as memory, attention and awareness (not alertness or consciousness). There is a broad range of severity of confusion; it can be as minor as a disturbance to short-term memory, to an inability to relate at [...]

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Man it’s been a long time since I posted anything interesting here on The Rejected.  It’s probably because my life is not that interesting at the moment.  From waking up early every morning, going to school, hanging out at the hospital, going to the gym, studying, and listening to other people’s drama, there’s not much [...]

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Well that was the shortest summer vacation I have ever had… yes it’s still summer in Australia and I’ve already been in school for a couple of weeks.  Welcome to my hell… errr Third Year Medicine.  To kick things off we had a party at our place.  Surprisingly I was not drunk at all.  I [...]

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I’m sure most of you who are on student loans in Canada have figured out by now that the current bank lending rate on professional lines of credit is now at a low 3.0% which is the current Canadian prime rate.  This is great if you have to borrow a lot of money to finance [...]

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How to contact the Royal Brisbane Hospital to set up your medical electives:
Royal Brisbane Hospital
Herston Road, Herston, Brisbane, Queensland 4006
Telephone Number: +61 7 3253 8111
Fax Number: +61 7 3857 4462
The Royal Brisbane hospital is a large 800-bed, 500,000 admissions a year hospital. It is a 15 minute bus ride from teh city centre. [...]

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Athought considered by many to be more of a country town than a city, Adelaide has wonderful beaches, wines and a good music scene.  It’s not usually on the tourist route and hence is not so often visited on electives.  This is a good place to go, however, if you’ve done Australia before and want [...]

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