A Different Way To Think About Clinical Histories

Part of any podiatric clinical assessment, the patient history, forms a very important foundation for establishing the patient’s current situation and also aiding the decision-making process in reaching a diagnosis and forming a management plan.

Taking an effective clinical history is as much an art form as it is ensuring that all the relevant areas have been discussed or considered.  Learning to perfect taking an effective history can be difficult and is often based on learning through doing whilst using acronyms to learn and cover specific areas.

Whilst these can be helpful learning techniques in committing facts to memory, in the context of the clinical history, they don’t address their multi-layered nature causing specific issues for students and clinicians focused on remembering the pattern of the contents of the acronym whilst engaging with a patient in the clinical interaction.

Visual Pod History aims to try to help students and clinicians visualise not only the key pieces of informtion that are required, but also the nuanced informtion that helps to drive clinical assessment and intervention, manage patient expectations and set goals and objectives.