VeterinarySmall animal clinical evaluation
The examiner plays the owner of a dog or cat with a condition common in practice. You take the history, do the complete physical exam, explain what you find, work the case up with tests and give the diagnosis, the treatment and the prognosis. It is station 1 (SAM01) of the Small Animal Medicine section of the ECFVG Clinical Proficiency Examination.
Free to startScenarios
- A dog with a condition commonly seen in practice, presented by its owner.
- A cat with a condition commonly seen in practice, presented by its owner.
The steps
- Question the owner to get the complete history: presenting complaint, current illness, past medical, surgical and trauma history, vaccinations and husbandry.
- Do a visual distance exam, including the body condition.
- Do a thorough, systematic hands-on exam for the presenting complaint and any other abnormality of the animal.
- Handle the patient correctly the whole time.
- Assess the patient accurately: heart rate, respiratory rate and pattern, temperature.
- Record the history and the exam on the form, system by system, with temperature, pulse, respiration, weight and temperament.
- Explain every normal and abnormal finding to the owner.
- List the patient's problems and the differential diagnoses for the most relevant ones, explaining your reasoning.
- Order the diagnostic tests in a logical progression and justify each one.
- Interpret the results and use each one to rule diagnoses in or out, ordering more tests if needed.
- Give the most likely diagnosis.
- Build a therapeutic plan for this patient: treatment, follow-up, prevention and control.
- Give the prognosis.
- Communicate clearly with the owner throughout and answer their questions.
Safety rules that stop the station
- Handle every animal humanely and safely: the examiner can take points off or stop the station with a zero.
- Putting the patient's health and well-being at risk, by action or inaction, is a fatal flaw: zero for the station and the whole Small Animal Medicine section fails.
To pass
- The sheet scores 100 points: history 15, physical exam 15, problems and differentials 14, diagnostic approach 13, test results and diagnosis 18, therapeutic plan and prognosis 15, communication 10.
- Points come off for recording a finding that is not there, ordering a test the patient does not need, or treating a list of differentials that leaves out the right diagnosis.
- The station is 40% of the Small Animal Medicine section, which needs 60 weighted points to pass.
Practice each scenario
Official source
Manual of Administration for the Clinical Proficiency Examination
The AVMA publishes the CPE Manual of Administration free: every station, its assessment sheet and the score needed to pass.
Making Synapses is not affiliated with, sponsored by or endorsed by the AVMA, the ECFVG, the AAVSB, the ICVA, the Canadian National Examining Board or any state board. ECFVG, CPE, BCSE, PAVE and NAVLE are trademarks of their respective owners and are named only to describe the exams.