Abstract
Studying medical cases is an effective way to enhance clinical reasoning skills and reinforce clinical knowledge. An Ishikawa diagram, also known as a cause-and-effect diagram or fishbone diagram, is often used in quality management in manufacturing industries.In this report, an Ishikawa diagram is used to demonstrate how to relate potential causes of a major presenting problem in a clinical setting. This tool can be used by teams in problem-based learning or in self-directed learning settings.An Ishikawa diagram annotated with references to relevant medical cases and literature can be continually updated and can assist memory and retrieval of relevant medical cases and literature. It could also be used to cultivate a lifelong learning habit in medical professionals.
Highlights
Doctors are accustomed to learning from their more experienced peers as well as from their own experiences in treating their patients [1]
If a patient presents with secondary amenorrhea, a clinician will consider common causes such as pregnancy and use of contraceptive medications before exploring other less common but critical causes such as hyperprolactinemia, ovarian cancer and so on
‘chemotherapy and radiotherapy’ are indicated in the branch of the ‘fishbone’ that shows the cause of ovarian failure, a potential cause for secondary amenorrhea/oligomenorrhea (Figure 1)
Summary
Doctors are accustomed to learning from their more experienced peers as well as from their own experiences in treating their patients [1]. Case reports can provide valuable sources of information for others to learn from. Studying medical cases is an effective way to enhance clinical reasoning skills and reinforce clinical knowledge [2]. A case report provides important and detailed information about a patient that is often lost in larger studies [3]. When clinicians or medical students analyze a clinical problem, they usually start with potential common causes. If a patient presents with secondary amenorrhea, a clinician will consider common causes such as pregnancy and use of contraceptive medications before exploring other less common but critical causes such as hyperprolactinemia, ovarian cancer and so on. When clinicians are faced with a puzzling clinical problem, they may search journals that publish clinical
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