mnemonic for generating a differential diagnosis
Are you trying to figure out what is going on with your patient?
Generating a differential diagnosis for a patient is critical for performing a directed history and physical as well as for organizing your patient presentation (if you will be presenting to an attending or resident) and ultimately generating a treatment plan. Until you are familiar with the particular area of medicine you are training in, it can be difficult to generate a differential diagnosis from a patient’s chief complaint or history. As I am getting through medical school, it is becoming easier but I still find it to be a challenging mental exercise (with the exception of a few presentations that I have seen over and over again on the wards). Here is a mnemonic someone once told me for generating a differential diagnosis on any patient: VINDICATE.
V = Vascular
I = Infection (e.g. viruses, bacteria and fungal)
N = Neoplasm
D = Drugs (medications or illicit drugs)
I - Inflammatory/Idiopathic
C = Congenital
A = Autoimmune
T = Trauma
E = Endocrine/metabolic
That pretty much covers it all. There are other mnemonics and acronyms out there too if you don’t like this one. But if you are medical student, it isn’t a bad idea to have one these mnemonics in your back pocket in case you run into a patient presentation that you are not familiar with.
Want more medical mnemonics? Check out the medical mnemonics page, where you’ll find a huge number of mnemonics all organized into categories (more mnemonics are added weekly). If you have a cool or useful medical mnemonic for inclusion, please email me or post a comment below.
