03.26.07
Hints and tips on the medical consultation
Original article by: Michael Tam :: Printer friendly
Whether you are seeing a patient in an outpatient clinic, the emergency department or in general practice, the ability to engage in a medical consultation is vital to clinical practice.
|
The medical consultation is your basic tool and good communication is king. |
Throughout all modern Australian medical schools, the idea and skills of being a good communicator is drummed into students so I won’t necessarily repeat skills that are obvious or self-evident. Rather, the following are some tricks and suggestions that may make you a better communicator.
A good way to think about the goals of a medical consultation is that it has three functions (1):
- Build the doctor-patient relationship
- Collection of data
- To agree on a management plan
03.07.07
Collect blood in the serum tube first
Original article by: Michael Tam :: Printer friendly
Vacutainer system |
This short article is relevant for those people or institutions that use vacuumed tubes for venepunction and does not apply to using a needle and syringe.
One of the disadvantages of using a vacuumed tube system for directly withdrawing blood is that there is always a possibility that the needle dislodges or that the vein collapses before all the necessary tubes are filled.
For a long time, this would involve an apology from myself to my patient and a second venepuncture to collect the necessary blood. This is actually a reason that to this day, I still prefer using a plain needle and syringe (despite the increased needlestick risk) for patients with either difficult access or who require blood in many tubes.
However, this is a trick that I learnt from experience:
|
Always collect blood in the serum tube first. |
