Wiki question about physical exam

Ash82

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I have been using the phrase "skin is warm" to hit the cardiovascular bullet. On the musculoskeletal specific audit tool, the examples given for cardio are palpation (eg pulses, temperature, edema, tenderness). Am I interpreting this correctly? Any thoughts on this would be great. Thanks.
 
This will depend on why the physician is palpating the skin. If it's done for Cardiovascular purposes the physician will document "location, size or thrills" of the heart itself. In the skin section, the palpation is for "induration, nodules, tightening". For Orthopeadic purposes when the physician palpates the skin, they are looking to see if it's warm (often due to additional blood flow to the area due to injury) or effusion. In Orthopaedics you won't be assigning the palpation of skin to the Cardio section of the exam because the physician is not going to document the location, size or thrills of the heart.
 
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