Case Study Practice

[MelissaCeballos]

Hello! I am a first year PA student and I am wondering if anyone knows of any free case study resources that are available. I am looking for a way to practice integrating and applying classroom knowledge to cases. If it would be worthwhile, I am willing to buy case study books, but would like to first find some websites if possible (being on a college student budget, of course!). Thanks in advance!

[SERENITY NOW]

There are so many good case books out there...

The case files series is excellent for first year because they often mix didactic knowledge in to their case presentations, and you can find specialty specific books for when you are learning a particular unit.  Their cases are the bread and butter, will help you with the test as well as rotations.  

If you are looking for the thought process while going through clinical cases, I've always highly recommended Paul Cutler's book Problem Solving in Clinical Medicine, which is also case based.  Its really one of its kind because it literally starts a patient encounter and pauses, giving the author time to spell out exactly what is going through their head from start to finish.  Very helpful to see how didactic knowledge is applied to clinical medicine.  Of course, the book is quite old, so don't necessarily memorize questionable treatment recommendations - but by and large most of the book still remains very applicable.

There is an excellent app "Resuscitation!" By EM Gladiators on the app store which is geared towards EM but it allows you to be interactively involved in cases, and I believe quite a few of the cases are free.  This is really a great resource.  

 

Here are a few case websites I've bookmarked over the years, which I never got around to using too much so I can't speak to how helpful they are:

http://www.nejm.org/multimedia/interactive-medical-case

https://emsimcases.com

https://www.med-u.org - excellent, but subscription based

http://www.trauma.org/index.php/main/cases/  

 

I always really enjoyed the case-based learning approach.  I've actually had some thoughts of developing my own interactive case-based educational website or youtube channel or something like that... who knows... maybe some day I'll be able to add my own resource to the list!

[MelissaCeballos]

Thank you so much, Serenity Now (I love your name - Seinfeld and meditations/yoga...it works on so many levels). I found out that I can get some of the Case Files through my school and have just put the Resuscitate! app on my phone. I didn't realize how many resources were out there and I appreciate all your input. I am looking forward to digging into some cases. I think a case-based educational website or YouTube channel would be amazing. If you ever have the opportunity to make those, let me know. I would definitely subscribe (even if I am out of school when it happens) and I would suggest it to anyone looking for learning resources. I haven't come across anything like it and believe it would be wildly successful. Thanks again for your help!!

[MCHAD]

"Prognosis" is another decent app for case studies, similar but not as in depth and more guided than resuscitate. The same company that makes that app makes another called "clinical sense"