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Rheumatology Teaching pp 71–91Cite as

The Art of Patient History Taking

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Abstract

The clinical interview is a crucial component of patient assessment. Comprehensive and accurate history taking is an essential skill for students and doctors to learn and develop, and when performed correctly, it forms the most valuable element of the diagnostic process. This chapter outlines the art of teaching the patient’s history taking, different patterns of rheumatic diseases and diagnostic strategies of locomotor disorders. At the end, the reader will be able to differentiate the main patterns of musculoskeletal conditions and learn how to implement targeted questioning and clinical reasoning to analyse the patient’s symptoms and interpret the clinical findings. By learning how to differentiate inflammatory from mechanical joint pains, distinguish different causes of regional pain and characterize the commonest patterns of inflammatory as well as non-inflammatory arthritis and its differential diagnosis and how to set up an investigation plan, the reader will gain a comprehensive set of information, enabling him/her to achieve core competence in making diagnosis and treatment decisions. Both factual knowledge of medical conditions and practical experience of history taking are required to develop and refine this crucial skill that underpins clinical practice.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. King’s College London, Darent Valley Hospital, Dartford, Kent, UK

    Yasser El Miedany

  2. Rheumatology and Rehabilitation, Ain Shams University, Cairo, Egypt

    Yasser El Miedany

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  1. Yasser El Miedany
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El Miedany, Y. (2019). The Art of Patient History Taking. In: Rheumatology Teaching. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-98213-7_6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-98213-7_6

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-98212-0

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-98213-7

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