Interpreting Liver Function Tests

Slides for Interpreting Liver Function Tests.

Antibiotics

Mechanisms of action and empirical antibiotics for common conditions. Antibiotics 2025.

Roadmap for Dermatological Diagnosis Part II

This is the second part of the dermatological diagnosis roadmap.

Roadmap for Dermatological Diagnosis

All of medicine is pattern recognition. Once you have described a lesion you must look at the pattern, symmetry, and distribution. Then you should be come to a diagnosis.
The Roadmap for Dermatological Diagnosis Part I

An Simple Introduction to Lesions and Patterns of Lesions for Medical Students

Dermatology is a lot about understanding the terminology and learning how to apply it. Here is a simple introduction.

An Introduction to Electrocardiography

This are the PDF of the slides for my three part short introduction to ECG:
Part I
Part II
Part III

Second Part of the ECG Seminar

These are the slides for the seminar on 12th of June 2024 regarding ECGs
Credit to LifeInTheFastLane, Dr Smith's ECG blog and UpToDate.

Introduction to ECG part 1

Hi guys these are slides for the teaching done on 5th June 2024: An Introduction to ECG

Treatment Thresholds and Selection of Drugs for Dyslipidaemia, Hypertension, and Diabetes Mellitus

Here are some thresholds and treatment selection put into easy to understand table forms.

What to do Before Referring

You either pity the Medical MO having to come two rounds to review the patient, one to order the bloods, the other after the results are out, or you are afraid of being scolded by the MO but either way, we can improve the efficiency of the patients seen by taking some basic investigations before we refer a patient. Provided the patient is not crashing that is. Here are my notes for "What to do Before Referring"

Interpreting Renal Biopsies

Ever since I moved to UMMC, I have been quite disillusioned by House Officer teaching. I don't if it is me or the House Officers but now I resolve to resume teaching and upload the stuff I prepared for a while. Here is the one I been using a bit regarding renal biopsy interpretations.

Inhalers Used in UMMC

After a long hiatus, I plan to make more post and put whatever I have done available so to benefit more than just the students who can attend. Here are the lecture slides for the teaching done 15th May 2024 in 11UA on the types of inhalers available in UMMC.

Inotrope Selection

Inotrope selection is sometimes needed but please find the cause, find the cause, FIND THE CAUSE, and find the cause before using this.

Interpreting Arterial Blood Gas

Interpreting arterial blood gas is an essential skill for the house officer. This is the outline of my framework.

Taking a past medical history or history disease known.

If the examiner request that you take a history of a patient's diabetes mellitus , one cannot use the normal methods. Instead I use the D2FMC3 framework.
You must know the:

1. Duration
2. Diagnosis
• presenting symptoms
• trigger or risk factors
• gold standard tests done
• clinical criteria used for diagnosis
• who and where was the diagnosis
3. Follow-up
• regular or irregular
• defaulted
• doctor-shopping
4. Management
• Non-pharmacological
• Pharmacological
5. Compliance
• If not, why?
6. Control
7. Complications
• disease-related
• treatment-related

For example: This 50 year old gentleman has diabetes mellitus which was diagnosed in 2015. He first presented with polyuria, polydipsia, and recurrent fungal infection of the genital area. His parents had diabetes mellitus. Both diagnosed in their 50's. Fasting blood glucose was 14.3 mmol/L and HbA1c done by his general practitioner was 9.2%. He is currently being regularly followed-up by his personal GP. He already has been screened for retinopathy, nephropathy, and polyneuropathy. He is under regular ophthalmology follow-up, has seen the foot care nurse and seen the diabetic nurse educator. He is now on metformin 1g bd and basal bolus insulin. He is compliant to his medication though sometimes not compliant to diet restriction. His latest HbA1c is 7.0% and home self-monitoring of blood glucose is between 5.0 to 8.0. He has microalbuminuria and has undergone one previous laser treatment for his left eye and cataracts removed from both eyes. He admits to hypoglycaemic episodes up to once a week usually around 3am and this has affected the compliance to his insulin somewhat.

So hopefully with this framework one can get as much relevant history as is needed.

A further elaboration of the art of history-taking

There are two forms of history-taking: that which the disease is known ("please take a history of this patient's diabetes mellitus") and that which the disease is unknown ("this gentleman is short of breath").
If the disease is known we use the D2FMC3 framework outline previously.
If unknown we use the method we most commonly use. My variation of this method will be outlined below:
First we clarify the symptoms and find out what the patient means. Most time the use the words wrongly or imprecisely.
Then we find out the duration.
Then we determine the history of presenting illness. For me there are two components: the character of the symptoms and the differentials.
For the character I use OPPA:

1. Onset
2. Progression
• frequency
• severity
• timing
3. Previous similar symptoms
4. Aggravating and alleviating factors

Then depending on what the symptoms are I will ask further questions. For example for pain, I will ask the character, site, and radiation.

The illustration is seen here.

Systems Review in Kayan

I would to thank my student Cristal Asong for getting her parents to help me with this. May it be of use to people. The Review of Systems in Kayan.
Below are also the Review of Systems for:

1. Iban
2. Bidayuh Bukar-Sadong
3. Melanau

So I would have the review of systems for most of Sarawakian languages but so far I haven't had much luck with the Sabahan ones.

Name change

If you noticed, it is no longer Klang Hospital House Officers' Resource Centre but University Hospital Students' and House Officers' Resource Centre because I left Klang almost 3 years ago.

Sodium Correction Calculation Formula

This is the calculation for sodium correction:

Formula One:

[Na]_serumold(Total Body Water)+[Na]_infusion(Volume Given)=[Na]_serumnew(Total Body Water+Voume Given)

Formula Two:

ΔNa=[Na]_serumnew-[Na]_serumold

Rearrange Formula Two:

[Na]_serumnew= ΔNa+[Na]_serumold

Replace Rearranged Formula Two into Formula One:

[Na]_serumold(Total Body Water)+[Na]_infusion(Volume Given)= (ΔNa+[Na]_serumold)(Total Body Water+Voume Given)

Expand:

[Na]_serumold(Total Body Water)+[Na]_infusion(Volume Given)= ΔNa(Total Body Water)+ ΔNa(Volume Given)+[Na]_serumold(Total Body Water)+[Na]_serumold(Volume Given)

Rearrange all with variable (Volume Given) to one side:

[Na]_infusion(Volume Given)-[Na]_serumold(Volume Given)-ΔNa(Volume Given)= ΔNa(Total Body Water)-[Na]_serumold(Total Body Water)+[Na]_serumold(Total Body Water)

Cancelling and grouping variables:

([Na]_infusion-[Na]_serumold-ΔNa)(Volume Given)= ΔNa(Total Body Water)

(Volume given)= ΔNa(Total Body Water)/([Na]_infusion-[Na]_serumold-ΔNa)

In Sarawak Handbook variable ΔNa was rearranged to one side:

ΔNa(Total Body Water)+ΔNa(Volume Given)=[Na]_infusion(Volume Given)-[Na]_serumold(Volume Given)

ΔNa(Total Body Water+Volume Given)=[Na]_infusion(Volume Given)-[Na]_serumold(Volume Given)

ΔNa=[Na]_infusion(Volume Given)-[Na]_serumold(Volume Given)/(Total Body Water+Volume Given)

Volume Given was assumed to be one litre so replacing “Volume Given” with 1 giving:

ΔNa=[Na]_infusion(1)-[Na]_serumold(1)/(Total Body Water+1)

ΔNa=[Na]_infusion-[Na]_serumold/Total Body Water+1

A YouTube Channel

On and off there will patients with good signs that I will show my students. Unfortunately this a generate an avalanche of students visiting a patient who is already ill. By recording the signs I hope to be able to show the signs without harassing the poor patient. The channel is at UM Clinical Skills or https://preview.tinyurl.com/yau8d9nq.