Talk:Physical examination

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 19 August 2019 and 13 December 2019. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Hadleyclower.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 06:37, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Sackett
Sackett and his buddies have been pressing for more rigorous study of physical signs a few years ago:
 * FA McAlister, SE Straus, DL Sackett. Why we need large, simple studies of the clinical examination: the problem and a proposed solution. Lancet 1999 354: 1721-24.

Probably worth mentioning, as is some stuff from JAMA's "the rational clinical examination" that appears in regular intervals. JFW | T@lk  16:18, 25 September 2006 (UTC)
 * I think including refs to EBM-- should be the goal of all the physical exam articles. Nephron T|C 23:08, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Incomplete article?
From a lay perspective, this article seems either to be abruptly incomplete as to the processes of a typical modern physical examination or devoid of references to allied processes of examination. Should there not be information on the other aspects of a physical examination, i.e., palpation of the abdomen, examination of the eyes, ears, throat, genitalia, prostate, ausculation of the bowel, reflex determination, and motor/neurological function tests, as well as the various blood, fecal, and urine tests concomitant with standard physical examinations, or at least links directing a reader to articles specifically covering these? Surely heart and lung examinations are not the only aspects of a physical examination worthy of detailed description in this article.Monkeyzpop (talk) 16:04, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

Proposed Merger
This article and General medical examination are largely duplication of each other. Legacypac (talk) 22:55, 15 November 2015 (UTC)
 * My reply is 4 years too late, but I just ran into these articles myself and I agree. I will start a formal merger proposal and share it on WP:WikiProject Medicine. SpicyMilkBoy (talk) 02:49, 13 July 2019 (UTC)

The first cited reference and the conclusions that were suggested in the beginning were a bit misleading
Updated the link concluding that "General health checks in adults for reducing morbidity and mortality from disease" do not actually help reduce mortality and deleted the "outdated" superscript as this link was updated January 31 2019. I do think the article and the conclusions that were suggested on the page were a bit misleading and so I got rid of the sentence that said "...unlikely to do more good than harm". If someone with access to the full text could elaborate as to the reasoning behind why regular checkups are non-necessary, that would be useful. How are doctors to know what the health status of their patients is without a physical? And yet, the article summery claims that the doctors "...already identify and intervene when they suspect a patient to be at high risk of developing disease when they see them for other reasons..." but what if they do not have a reason to see them? There are many diseases that when overt symptoms show up, it is much more costly. I added a sentence clarifying that being in regular communication with your doctor is still important. Aaron E-J (talk) 23:52, 22 March 2019 (UTC)

July 2019 merger proposal
General medical examination is a duplicate of this article, although it contains some good material that should be incorporated here. I'm proposing to merge the two pages. Please share your thoughts below. Thanks, SpicyMilkBoy (talk) 02:55, 13 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Support per SpicyMilkBoy. Simpler and clearer to have them as the same article. --Tom (LT) (talk) 05:06, 13 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Support they are broadly synomymous - combining both into a single stronger article is prudent Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 06:10, 13 July 2019 (UTC)
 * support per above two editors--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 11:36, 13 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Comment Physical examination is a broad group of types of exams of which General medical examination is one type. Doc James  (talk · contribs · email) 19:06, 13 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Sort of, but they are nebulous enough definition-wise that they'd be better off as one article. I mean, you can do "physical examination of neurological system" etc. but the umbrella "physical examination" as most doctors would understand and GME are pretty much synonymous. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 21:15, 13 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Yes agree not unreasonable to merge. Doc James  (talk · contribs · email) 07:05, 15 July 2019 (UTC)

✅ Merged per consensus. SpicyMilkBoy (talk) 12:21, 3 August 2019 (UTC)

Missing info
The Types section seems rather incomplete. It's focused on check-ups with no real discussion of physical exams as used to investigate/diagnose disease. There's also no info about pediatric/neonatal exams, which we surprisingly don't even have an article for, unless I'm just searching for the wrong thing. SpicyMilkBoy (talk) 12:54, 3 August 2019 (UTC)

Featured picture candidate
Featured picture candidates/Medical examination during World War 1 at Washington, D.C. -- Editor-1 (talk) 06:44, 26 November 2019 (UTC)

Draft:Ningen Dock
Please consider incorporating material from the above draft submission into this article. Drafts are eligible for deletion after 6 months of inactivity. ~Kvng (talk) 22:49, 27 October 2020 (UTC)