Surgery & perioperative · History + examination

Vomiting blood after retching

Medium

15 min station · 2 min reading · Recommended for Curtin Year 5 students

Practising together? The others go to choicehub.co/join and type

Q F C G

2 min reading · 15 min station · reminders at 2 min

Instructions

You are a medical student on placement in the emergency department. Your next patient is Achol Mading, 46, who has vomited fresh blood. Her blood results are below.

  1. Take a focused history

  2. Examine the patient

  3. Outline to the examiner:

    • Your findings
    • Your interpretation of the results
    • Your most likely diagnosis and differentials
    • Next steps in management, including relevant investigations

Blood tests

Blood tests
ItemValueReference range
Haemoglobin92 g/L115-155 g/L
Platelets88 x 10^9/L150-400 x 10^9/L
White cell count10.8 x 10^9/L4.0-11.0 x 10^9/L
INR1.50.9-1.2
Prothrombin time17 seconds10-14 seconds
Activated partial thromboplastin time34 seconds25-35 seconds
Fibrinogen2.1 g/L2.0-4.0 g/L
Bilirubin34 umol/L3-20 umol/L
Albumin28 g/L35-50 g/L
ALT68 U/L5-35 U/L
AST142 U/L5-35 U/L
ALP156 U/L30-110 U/L
GGT310 U/L5-40 U/L
Urea12.8 mmol/L2.5-7.8 mmol/L
Creatinine78 umol/L45-90 umol/L
Sodium134 mmol/L135-145 mmol/L
Potassium3.7 mmol/L3.5-5.2 mmol/L
Practising alone? Ask the examinerFindings appear only when you ask for them

Investigations

Examination

After treatment

ChoiceHub writes these stations itself, from the ground up, across a wide range of clinical topics. They are not official exam material, and no university has written, reviewed or endorsed them. “Recommended for” only suggests the year and exam format a station suits.