Introduction

We hope you will develop an approach to the assessment and management of the selected common clinical cases that present to the Emergency Department. As a result you should come to a basic understanding of some of the relevant history, examination, investigations and management that is required in each of these clinical situations and be able to apply these approaches to other similar clinical situations.

It should be understood that patients presenting to the Emergency Department seldom come attached with a diagnosis. Most patients present with undifferentiated complaints that could be medically, surgically, psychiatrically and/or socially related.  However, there are often common themes to our approach. For instance, our approach to the unstable patient is “A, B, C, D” and our structure for documenting typically is history, examination, investigations, and differential diagnosis. It is hoped that by identifying the similarities and differences between the approaches to the common conditions you will have a greater overall understanding of how to approach any undifferentiated case.