Hey!
Welcome to A4med, My name is Fraser, a doctor interested in medical education and critical care!
This is a pet project to improve education by having a place to provide notes, questions and general resources to thriving on the wards and managing sick patients. I would be lying if I said it was just to teach students, it's also to teach myself and improve as a doctor both in my practice and as a teacher to students and colleagues. This is not for exam study or revision, it's goal is to supplement my clinical teaching and I cannot guarantee that everything is accurate/up to date. Naturally, our understanding of medicine changes rapidly, but I am more than happy to correct mistakes and welcome all constructive and critical feedback. Just shoot me an email (A4medicalschool@gmail.com).
Fraser :)
The DEADMAN approach to any topic
Structure is key to sounding like you know it all when under pressure. You could know everything but flounder your way through a case and sound like you know nothing. Soooo the structure I've chosen to use is one I vaguely remember being taught by a surgeon in medical school when being posed with one of those broad consultant questions like "Tell me what you know about [insert the disease you know at the most in-opportune moment when you've dropped out of reality into daydreaming on the ward round]"... then you proceed to mention the rarest part of the disease that you remember because it was the most interesting, to then be interrupted by a disappointing grunt and lecturing before you can re-orient to the topic... definitely hasn't happened to me...
The structure goes a little something like this: DEADMAN.Β
Definition - What is the disease/pathology?
Epidemiology - Who gets it?
Aetiology/Anatomy and physiology - what causes it/ what is the key anatomy and (patho)physiology underlying it?
Diagnosis - How do we diagnose it? i.e., diagnostic criteria and exclusion criteria.Β
MANagement - obviously... But keep in mind there are many ways to manage a disease, and that's part of the "art" of medicine.Β
Lastly, I have included a sprinkling of extra bits and pieces from mechanisms, interesting cases and common problems you might see as a junior doctor with general approaches and pearls learnt from experienced clinicians.