Introduction to Taking a Patient History

Obtaining an accurate patient history is one of the most important skills any clinician or healthcare provider can learn. In fact, History is the most important part of diagnosing a patient as up to 80% of diagnoses are made on history alone.

This course has been specially designed to help develop a student’s history taking skill. Any common HPI writing system such as OLDCARTS, PQRST, etc. can be used with these cases. The course progresses in difficulty with the first cases providing very thorough and accurate histories. Then they slowly progress in difficulty either through lack of information provided or from difficulty in obtaining history from the patient. By the end of the course, will have learned how to obtain an accurate patient history and convey it in a concise and reliable manner.