Assignment 1: Differential Diagnosis for Skin Conditions
Properly identifying the cause and type of a patient’s skin
condition involves a process of elimination known as differential diagnosis.
Using this process, a health professional can take a given set of physical
abnormalities, vital signs, health assessment findings, and patient
descriptions of symptoms, and incrementally narrow them down until one
diagnosis is determined as the most likely cause.
In this Assignment, you will examine several visual
representations of various skin conditions, describe your observations, and use
the techniques of differential diagnosis to determine the most likely
condition.
To prepare:
Review the Skin Conditions document provided in this week’s
Learning Resources, and select one condition to closely examine for this Assignment.
Consider the abnormal physical characteristics you observe
in the graphic you selected. How would you describe the characteristics using
clinical terminologies?
Explore different conditions that could be the cause of the
skin abnormalities in the graphics you selected.
Consider which of the conditions is most likely to be the
correct diagnosis, and why.
Download the SOAP Template found in this week’s Learning
Resources.
To complete:
Choose one skin condition graphic (identify by number in
your Chief Complaint) to document your assignment in the SOAP (Subjective,
Objective, Assessment, and Plan) note format, rather than the traditional
narrative style. Refer to Chapter 2 of
the Sullivan text and the Comprehensive SOAP Template in this week’s Learning Resources
for guidance. Remember that not all comprehensive SOAP data are included in
every patient case.
Use clinical terminologies to explain the physical
characteristics featured in the graphic. Formulate a differential diagnosis of
three to five possible conditions for the skin graphic that you chose.
Determine which is most likely to be the correct diagnosis and explain your
reasoning using at least 3 different references from current evidence based
literature.
Submission and Grading Information
