Return to Diagnosis ListShow Learning Points most relevant to Phase 1:

Diarrhoea

Clinical Discipline(s)/Organ System(s)
Digestive System, Gastroenterology & Hepatology, Infectious Diseases, Microbiology
Progress Test Topic(s)
Digestive, Infectious disease
Description
A 35 year old Moriori man from the Chatham Islands, who works as a chef, visits his GP with 3 days of abdominal cramping and diarrhoea. He reports that last weekend he went to the Kai Iwi lakes with a tramping club; they had a barbecue and he enjoyed fresh spring water, grilled chicken and potato salad.
Progress Test-Type Questions:   Question 1
Applied Science for Medicine 
   - Anatomy and function of the gastrointestinal tract
   - Mechanisms of diarrhoea: secretory, osmotic and invasive
   - The common aetiologies of diarrhoea across the lifespan
   - Pharmacology of metronidazole
   - Microbiology of diarrhoea
Clinical and Communication Skills 
   - History from a patient with gastrointestinal illness including exposure history for patients with vomiting and/or diarrhoea
   - Examine the abdomen
   - Define diarrhoea
   - Differential diagnosis of acute gastrointestinal illness
   - Investigations required for acute gastrointestinal illness and their interpretation
   - Finding information for disease outbreaks
   - Antimicrobial stewardship: role of antibiotics in the management of diarrhoea and the role of antibiotics in causing diarrhoea
   - Complications of diarrhoea
   - Obtain history of Clostridioides difficile risk factors (recent antibiotic use, age (greater than 65 years), recent stay in hospital or nursing home residence, immunocompromise)
Personal and Professional Skills 
   - Counselling regarding the appropriate timing of return to work
   - Role of infection control and personal protection equipment
Population Health 
   - Epidemiology of infectious diarrhoea in New Zealand and worldwide
   - Notifiable disease
   - Infectious disease surveillance
   - Occupation restrictions in relation to acute or chronic illness
Conditions to be considered relating to this scenario
Common
Infectious diarrhoea including rotavirus, norovirus, food poisoning, Campylobacter, Salmonella, Shigella, Giardia Clostridioides difficile
Less common but 'important not to miss'
inflammatory bowel disease
Uncommon
malabsorption, chronic pancreatitis
Related Scenarios
[Infectious disease outbreak]