Station - Instructions for candidate
You are a final-year medical student on placement in a busy metropolitan general practice.
Francesca Ferraro, a 21-year-old university student, has booked an urgent appointment about her right knee. She injured it playing football three days ago and it has been swollen and sore since. The practice nurse has recorded her observations before you go in.
| Practice nurse observations | Temperature 36.8 C, HR 74 and regular, BP 118/72 mmHg, RR 14, SpO2 99% on room air; afebrile and systemically well; self-reported pain 4/10 at rest. |
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Your tasks are to:
- Take a focused history of the presenting complaint and the relevant background (past history, medications, allergies and social history).
- Perform a focused examination of the right knee. Describe to the examiner what you would like to look for or examine and the relevant findings will be provided to you.
- Request any relevant investigations. Results will be provided by the examiner if appropriately indicated.
- State your most likely diagnosis and your key differentials to the examiner.
- Outline your initial management plan, including analgesia, protection, referral and safety-netting, to the examiner.
- You do NOT need to summarise your history and examination findings to the examiner before giving your diagnosis.
- You are not required to perform any procedure, such as joint aspiration, in this station.
- Please verbalise your examination to the examiner; the relevant findings will be provided as you describe each step.
This is a 10-minute station, with 2 minutes of reading time.