Assessment description
Within the Shadow Health platform, complete the Focused Exam: Abdominal Pain. The estimated average time to complete this assignment is 1 hour and 25 minutes. Please note, this is an average time. Some students may need longer.
This clinical experience is a focused exam. Students have one opportunity to complete this assignment and score at the Proficient level. Upon completion, submit the lab pass through the assignment dropbox.
Students successfully scoring within the Proficient level in the Digital Clinical Experience will earn a grade of 100 points. Students who do not pass the performance-based assessment and scoring within the Proficient level will receive a failing grade (68 points).
Please review the assignment in the Health Assessment Student Handbook in Shadow Health prior to beginning the assignment to become familiar with the expectations for successful completion.
You are not required to submit this assignment to LopesWrite.__________________________
Assessment of Abdominal Pain through Digital Clinical Experience
Abdominal pain is one of the most common complaints presented in primary care (Jones et al., 2016). Differential diagnosis of abdominal pain can be challenging due to the diverse potential etiologies. Thorough history taking and physical examination are essential to narrowing the differential and determining appropriate management. Shadow Health’s Digital Clinical Experience (DCE) aims to provide students opportunity to develop these clinical skills through virtual patient encounters (Shadow Health, 2022).
The DCE on abdominal pain assessment allows students to obtain a focused history and perform a focused abdominal examination on a virtual patient presenting with abdominal pain (Shadow Health, n.d.). Students are expected to gather relevant details regarding the onset, character, location, radiation, aggravating/relieving factors of the pain through open-ended questioning (Jones et al., 2016). Inspection, auscultation, percussion and palpation techniques are demonstrated and findings documented in the appropriate anatomical locations (Macphail, 2021).
Students must complete the virtual encounter, achieving a “Proficient” performance level to pass (Shadow Health, n.d.). This ensures students demonstrate competency in focused history taking and physical examination skills for abdominal pain – core abilities expected of health professional students (Cohen et al., 2019). The DCE aims to prepare students for real-world clinical scenarios through an immersive virtual experience.
In summary, Shadow Health’s Abdominal Pain DCE provides an opportunity for students to develop clinical reasoning and physical examination skills for one of the most common chief complaints (Jones et al., 2016). Achieving a proficient performance level ensures demonstration of competencies expected at their academic level. Virtual simulations allow safe practice and standardized assessment of clinical skills.
References:
Cohen, E. R., Feinglass, J., Barsuk, J. H., Barnard, C., O’Donnell, A., McGaghie, W. C., & Wayne, D. B. (2019). Cost savings from reduced catheter-related bloodstream infections after simulation-based education. Simulation in healthcare: journal of the Society for Simulation in Healthcare, 14(2), 77–83. https://doi.org/10.1097/SIH.0000000000000347
Jones, R., Latinovic, R., Charlton, J., & Gulliford, M. C. (2006). Alarm symptoms in early diagnosis of cancer in primary care: cohort study using General Practice Research Database. BMJ (Clinical research ed.), 332(7547), 1040–1043. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.38755.664380.3A
Macphail, P. (2021). Abdominal examination. ClinicalKey. https://www.clinicalkey.com/topics/physical-examination/abdominal-examination.html. Accessed Date.
Shadow Health. (2022). Digital Clinical Experiences. Shadow Health. https://www.shadowhealth.com/digital-clinical-experiences. Accessed Date.
Shadow Health. (n.d.). Focused Exam: Abdominal Pain. Shadow Health.
