General practice · History

The sleepy truck driver - General practice

MediumYear 5 · Curtin style · 10 min + 2 min reading · 4 tasks

Ready

2 min reading, 10 min station, warning at 2 min.

Station - Instructions for candidate

You are a final-year medical student on placement at a general practice in Midland.

Gary Pratt, a 49-year-old interstate truck driver, has been sent in by his wife, who says he 'stops breathing in his sleep'. He is a regular patient of the practice for blood pressure. The practice nurse has recorded his observations and measurements.

Nurse's note and practice recordBP 152/96 mmHg (on perindopril 8 mg and amlodipine 10 mg), HR 84, SpO2 95% on room air. Weight 118 kg, height 176 cm, BMI 38. Neck circumference 46 cm. Holds a heavy vehicle (HC) licence; drives Perth-Port Hedland weekly. Smoker 10/day.

Your tasks are to:

  1. Take a focused history.
  2. State your most likely diagnosis and differential diagnoses to the examiner.
  3. Request any relevant investigations.
  4. Discuss your initial management plan with Mr Pratt.
  • You do NOT need to examine the patient; the examination findings are available from the examiner on request.
  • You do NOT need to summarise your findings to the examiner.

This is a 10-minute station, with 2 minutes of reading time.

Ask the examiner

Say what you would examine or request, the way you would in the station. Nothing is named until you ask for it.

Whatever the examiner recognises is revealed below. Or pick a numbered item to reveal it blind.

Investigations

Ask for a category the way you would in the station: “Can I have the obs and a set of bloods?”

Examination

Say what you would examine and how; the examiner reports what you would find.

Generated by AI for practice; check doses and pathways against eTG / AMH before relying on them.