family medicine
Clinical teaching and practical ideas for your next study session.
Obesity Board Prep: Build the Weight Timeline Before Naming a Cause
“Yo-yo dieting” by itself is not an explanation. Learn to reconstruct weight change over time, connect prior attempts and life events to the timeline, and avoid mistaking coincidence for cause.
Retinal Detachment vs. Vascular Vision Loss: The History That Matters
New flashes and floaters before a persistent or enlarging shadow raise concern for a retinal tear or detachment—but a “curtain” can also describe transient retinal ischemia. Learn how onset, duration, and recovery shift the differential and guide urgent next steps.
Adolescent Depression: Why a PHQ-9A Is Not the Diagnosis
A 16-year-old’s insomnia, irritability, school decline, and self-harm raise concern—but do not establish MDD automatically. Learn how to use the PHQ-9A as a prompt, confirm the episode and functional change, and check for overlapping or alternative explanations.
Physical Restraint Safety on Boards: Avoid the Prone-Position Trap
When a restraint MCQ explanation recommends prone positioning, don’t memorize the key. Correct the safety error, preserve breathing, and distinguish prevention from monitoring.
Pediatric ITP With Platelets of 8,000: Let Bleeding Severity Set the Plan
A platelet count of 8,000 is alarming, but it does not decide admission or transfusion by itself. Learn how mucosal bleeding, diagnostic red flags, and follow-up reliability shape the next step.
Visual Hallucinations on Boards: Use the Red Flag, Not a Shortcut
For board questions, visual hallucinations should move secondary medical, neurologic, and substance-related causes up the differential. Practice using onset, attention, baseline, and medication history—not modality alone—to decide what matters next.
After IPV Disclosure: Four Lethality Risk Markers and the Next Safe Step
Ask about weapons, escalating violence, threats to kill, and strangulation after an intimate partner violence disclosure. Learn how to use the answers to guide immediate, patient-led safety planning—not to make a checklist decide disposition.
ABG Board Prep: Does HCO3 28 Mean a Mixed Disorder?
An HCO3 of 28 in respiratory acidosis is not automatically a second metabolic alkalosis. Use compensation math, state what one ABG cannot establish, and explain why oxygenation and ventilation may fail together.
Heavy Periods and Iron-Deficiency Anemia: When to Look Beyond the Uterus
Heavy periods can cause iron-deficiency anemia, but they do not automatically rule out a gastrointestinal source. Learn which history and risk features shift the decision toward endoscopy.
Crystals in a Hot Knee: Why Gout Does Not Clear a Septic Joint
Urate crystals support gout, but they do not prove a hot knee is sterile. Learn how to assess infection risk and act safely while cultures are pending.
GI-Bleed SAQs: When to Use the Hemorrhage-Class Estimate
Separate clinical signs of instability from the trauma-derived class table: know what Class III means in its standard 70-kg model, and when the vignette does not justify assigning it.
Pigmented Lesion Differentials: When One Benign Clue Is Not Enough
A stuck-on surface or pearly edge can support a differential, but neither proves melanoma is absent. Learn to write useful contrasts without turning a clue into a rule-out.