About the Chest Pain Road Maps

The Chest Pain Roadmaps will begin from the same starting point. There will be four destinations (probable causes) which will be known by you at the beginning of the journey.

The routes have been arbitrarily determined by the expert who begins by quickly providing background information from the past history, social history, and family history. The terrain through which you then travel is also arbitrary. It includes: location, timing, character, provoking factors and relieving factors.

Much of chest pain interviewing centers around the exclusion of myocardial ischemia as the cause. This is reasonable because of the seriousness and prevalence of coronary artery disease.

In approaching these four common causes of chest pain, the three faculty experts have followed the same sequence. After reviewing the vital background information from the medical record, they begin with Location, and move on to Timing, Character, Provoking and Relieving Factors. Important associated symptoms are identified along with the character of the discomfort.

This sequence is a useful and logical one, but there are many others and you may feel more comfortable changing it. As long as you include all six elements, the exact sequence is not that important. Once you pick your own chest pain sequence, however, memorize it and try to follow it exactly. This will insure that you do not forget to cover some important information. It will also speed your interviews.

The key elements of the chest pain history, again, are:

• BACKGROUND
• LOCATION
• TIMING
• CHARACTER
• PROVOKING FACTORS
• RELIEVING FACTORS