While most patients cannot discern what’s happening between your ears when you put a stethoscope against their chests, they can easily tell when you are bungling your way through a half-baked shoulder or hip and groin examination. Why is that?
Well, patients cannot hear what you are hearing (or not hearing!) through your stethoscope. And even if they did, the sounds would largely be alien to them. They do, however, have an intuitive sense of how most of their joints are supposed to bend and behave. So if your orthopedic examination makes no mechanical sense, your patients will likely notice it – and that’s embarrassing.
The solution? Dr. Mark Hutchinson‘s YouTube videos of the shoulder, hip and knee exam. They are legit, precise, and credible, and the maneuvers can be learned with a little bit of practice.
While there are several pretty good demonstrations of the orthopedic exam out there, these stand out for me. Dr. Hutchinson‘s approach is fluid, logical and clear. In addition, the production value is superb, with good lighting and color, along with mock patients who have easily-delineable anatomical landmarks.
The only problem that I can identify is that the videos are fragmented into many segments so you have to click on many different links to see a full examination of a single joint. This problem can be partially mitigated by signing up to the BJSMVideos Channel.
I would love to get my hands on a full, uninterrupted video by Dr. Hutchinson. Please let me know whether you can help me with this, and what you think of Dr. Hutchinson’s YouTube videos in general. Meanwhile, I highly recommend his videos to medical students, residents and attendings!
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