Station - Instructions for candidate
You are an intern on placement in a busy general practice in Perth.
Li Zhang, a 64-year-old aged care worker, has booked to see you about six weeks of increasing palpitations and a feeling that she cannot tolerate heat like she used to. She has noticed she is losing weight despite eating normally. Her sister mentioned that her neck looks swollen. The practice manager notes she appears anxious and is sweating.
| Triage observations | Heart rate 112 bpm irregular, BP 136/78 mmHg, RR 18, temperature 37.0 C, weight 58 kg (down 4 kg from 12 weeks ago) |
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Your tasks are to:
- Take a focused history of the presenting complaint and relevant background.
- Perform a focused examination of the thyroid gland and assess thyroid status. Describe to the examiner what you would like to examine or test and the relevant findings will be provided to you.
- Request appropriate investigations. Results will be provided if appropriately indicated.
- State your most likely diagnosis and your differential diagnoses with brief justification.
- Outline your initial management plan to the patient, including what you will prescribe and when you will arrange specialist review.
- You do NOT need to summarise your findings to the examiner.
- Findings and investigation results will be provided by the examiner on request.
This is a 15-minute station, with 2 minutes of reading time.