NURS 6512 Week 5 Assignment 1: Assessing the Head, Eyes, Ears, Nose, and Throat IRIKEFE
Assignment 1: Case Study Assignment: Assessing the Head, Eyes, Ears, Nose, and Throat
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Most ear, nose, and throat conditions that arise in non-critical care settings are minor in nature. However, subtle symptoms can sometimes escalate into life-threatening conditions that require prompt assessment and treatment.
Nurses conducting assessments of the ears, nose, and throat must be able to identify the small differences between life-threatening conditions and benign ones. For instance, if a patient with a sore throat and a runny nose also has inflamed lymph nodes, the inflammation is probably due to the pathogen causing the sore throat rather than a case of throat cancer. With this knowledge and a sufficient patient health history, a nurse would not need to escalate the assessment to a biopsy or an MRI of the lymph nodes but would probably perform a simple strep test.
In this Case Study Assignment, you consider case studies of abnormal findings from patients in a clinical setting. You determine what history should be collected from the patients, what physical exams and diagnostic tests should be conducted, and formulate a differential diagnosis with several possible conditions.
To Prepare
By Day 1 of this week, you will be assigned to a specific case study for this Case Study Assignment. Please see the Course Announcements section of the classroom for your assignment from your Instructor.
Also, your Case Study Assignment should be in the Episodic/Focused SOAP Note format rather than the traditional narrative style format. Refer to Chapter 2 of the Sullivan text and the Episodic/Focused SOAP Template in the Week 5 Learning Resources for guidance. Remember that all Episodic/Focused SOAP Notes have specific data included in every patient case.
With regard to the case study you were assigned:
- Review this week’s Learning Resources and consider the insights they provide.
- Consider what history would be necessary to collect from the patient.
- Consider what physical exams and diagnostic tests would be appropriate to gather more information about the
- patient’s condition. How would the results be used to make a diagnosis?
- Identify at least five possible conditions that may be considered in a differential diagnosis for the patient.
The Assignment
Use the Episodic/Focused SOAP Template and create an episodic/focused note about the patient in the case study to which you were assigned using the episodic/focused note template provided in the Week 5 resources. Provide evidence from the literature to support diagnostic tests that would be appropriate for each case. List five different possible conditions for the patient’s differential diagnosis and justify why you selected each.
By Day 6 of Week 5
Submit your Assignment.
Submission and Grading Information
To submit your completed Assignment for review and grading, do the following:
Please save your Assignment using the naming convention WK5Assgn1+last name+first initial.(extension) as the name.
Click the Week 5 Assignment 1 Rubric to review the Grading Criteria for the Assignment.
Click the Week 5 Assignment 1 link. You will also be able to View Rubric for grading criteria from this area.
Next, from the Attach File area, click on the Browse My Computer button. Find the document you saved as
WK5Assgn1+last name+first initial.(extension)†and click Open.
If applicable: From the Plagiarism Tools area, click the checkbox for I agree to submit my paper(s) to the Global
Reference Database.
Click on the Submit button to complete your submission.
CASE STUDY
L/M/N/O/P/Q/R/S/T/U/V/W/X/Y/Z
CASE STUDY 2: Focused Throat Exam Lily is a 20-year-old student at the local community college. When some of her friends and classmates told her about an outbreak of flu-like symptoms sweeping her campus during the past 2 weeks, Lily figured she shouldn’t take her 3-day sore throat lightly. Your clinic has treated a few cases similar to Lily’s. All the patients reported decreased appetite, headaches, and pain with swallowing. As Lily recounts these symptoms to you, you notice that she has a runny nose and a slight hoarseness in her voice but doesn’t sound congested.
Also, your Case Study Assignment should be in the Episodic/Focused SOAP Note format rather than the traditional narrative style format. Refer to Chapter 2 of the Sullivan text and the Episodic/Focused SOAP Template in the Week 5 Learning Resources for guidance. Remember that all Episodic/Focused SOAP Notes have specific data included in every patient case.
You will have to add to this case as you have in the past. The information provided is all that we give you for this focused note. Please look back at the assigment overview post if you are not sure about what should be turned in.