Stages of all
medical consultations
Understanding the issues
A (small) page of medicine is required.
In the presence of an unfamiliar patient, the doctor is faced with a blank page to fill. To do this, he or she will have to rely on :
- what the patient reveals.
- what the practitioner will learn from this conversation and from the patient’s physical examination.
The medical consultation is two steps.
The doctor’s senses are called upon: sight, touch and hearing. He will mobilize his knowledge, experience and reflection. It’s a tough job, but it’s the only way to get the diagnosis right.
Exchange phase
The doctor asks the right questions, listens attentively and looks for clues in the patient’s behavior.
Physical examination
It involves four steps to correlate felt disorders with objective data: targeted observations, palpation, percussion and auscultation.
