Murtagh's Diagnostic Strategies

Book excerpt: This unique, practical and user-friendly resource provides a handy guide to diagnostic strategies for busy GPs, succinctly covering all the common problems you may encounter in your practice, including, for example, Abdominal pain, Cough, Diarrhoea, Fever, Headache, Shoulder pain and Weight gain or loss. In addition, it serves as a neat ready reference in a convenient package to facilitate study, in particular for registrars preparing for the Key Feature Problems (KFP) exam for RACGP Fellowship. Each topic guides the GP in taking a key history for the specific presenting problem, such as detailed pain analysis, drug intake, family history, travel, diet and ‘red flags’. It lists the key examinations and investigations GPs need to perform, as well as providing helpful diagnostic tips. In addition, it provides easy-to-use checklists of: – probable diagnoses – serious disorders not to be missed – pitfalls (often missed) – masquerades checklist – is the patient trying to tell me something? Murtagh’s Diagnostic Strategies covers 100 conditions, distilling John Murtagh’s many years of practical experience into one essential guide.