Hi, this is Steve Carroll and you're listening to EM Basic.

Today we're going to talk about abdominal pain.

Depending on where you work, this may be your number one chief complaint, so we need to be good at this.

As a specialty, emergency medicine sees more abdominal pain than any other specialty.

The surgeons may claim to be the abdominal pain experts, but the reality is

is that we see many more patients with undifferentiated abdominal pain than they do. We don't consult

the surgeons on every patient, and we send a lot of patients home after their workups that they

never see. So when it comes to acute and undifferentiated abdominal pain, we are the experts.

I'll probably have to say this at the beginning of each podcast, so here goes.

This doesn't represent the views or opinions of the Department of Defense, the U.S. Army,

or my residency program.

Now that's done, let's get started.

As always, you need to look at the triage note and make sure to address any issues.

It's okay to disagree with the triage note, but you have to document it in your chart.

Look at the vitals and go see the patient.

So for the history.

First, you want to look at the patient as you first walk into the room, and notice how do they

look?

Are they writhing on the stretch or trying to sit as still as possible?

Later in my intern year, I had a chart that said nothing more than a 35-year-old male

with nausea and vomiting.

Without knowing anything else, and before the patient said a word, I took one look at him

...