Taking History

Know the past, it will help you find a cure. Here is an interview on economics but it does apply.

Lew Rockwell interviews Dr. Ron Paul




A physician typically asks questions to obtain the following information about the patient:

* Identification and demographics: The name, age, height, weight.
* The "chief complaint (CC)" — the major health problem or concern, and its time course.
* History of present illless (HOPI) - details about the complaints enumerated in the CC.
* History of past illness (HPI)(including major illnesses, any previous surgery/operations, any current ongoing illness, eg diabetes)
* Review of systems(ROS) Systematic questioning about different organ systems
* Family diseases
* Childhood diseases
* Social history- including living arrangements, occupation, drug use (including tobacco, alcohol, other recreational drug use), recent foreign travel and exposure to environmental pathogens through recreational activities or pets.
* Regular medications (including those prescribed by doctors, and others obtained over the counter or alternative medicine)
* Allergies
* Sex life, obstetric/gynecological history and so on as appropriate.

History-taking may be comprehensive history taking (a fixed and extensive set of questions are asked, as practised only by medical students) or iterative hypothesis testing (questions are limited and adapted to rule in or out likely diagnoses based on information already obtained, as practised by busy clinicians). Computerised history-taking could be an integral part of clinical decision support systems. (wiki)