Go Over the Chief Complaint
Review His Past Medical History
Review His Current Medications
Review His Social History
Take a Family History
Do a Physical Exam
Order Laboratory Exams
Make a Diagnosis and Prescribe Medications to Treat This Patient!

Go over the NAEP guidelines on asthma diagnosis and treatment
Review Asthma Medications
Review Spirometry and Sample Cases
Links to Other Asthma Pages

Click here to go back to the primary care home page

About This Tutorial...

Welcome to the asthma learning module. This tutorial is designed to teach medical students how to diagnose and treat asthma patients. The guidelines recommended in this program have been obtained from the recent National Asthma Education and Prevention Program (NAEPP) Expert Panel Report on Guidelines for the Diagnosis and Management of Asthma.

How to Use the Tutorial

In this tutorial you will interact with a virtual patient, Mr. Jones. You will go through several steps in your workup, including history, physical, labs and finally treatment. During each portion you will have several different choices of questions you can ask or treatments you can choose. You DO NOT have to choose every single question or lab. Do what you think is appropriate. After each section you will have an opportunity to review the important points in that section.

The menubar on the left side of your screen with the green and blue buttons(like the one to the right) is there to help you in navigating through this tutorial. If at any time, you are lost or want to go back to another screen merely press on the appropriate button to the left.
At times during the tutorial you will notice some sections of the tutorial also have a grey button in the menu bar (like the one to the right). The button labelled 'questions' has extra questions on asthma which you can review. Each section has different questions. You can either go through the entire tutorial once and then go back over all the questions, or do them as you go along. When you are finished with a group of questions click on the previous page button to return to the case.
Other buttons marked with blue have general information on asthma or links to other asthma sites. These are useful if you want to look up some piece of information quickly. You can click on the previous page button to return to the case when you are done with one of these sections. Note: you may sometimes have to press the the 'previous page' button more than once to get back to the case.

The Cast of Characters

Mr. Steve Jones
Mr. Jones is a 39 year old man who comes into your office complaining of worsening asthma over the last few months. 		Dr. Osler
Dr. Osler is an well-respected physican with much experience treating asthma. At times during the tutorial he will give his advice, whether needed or not.



CLICK HERE TO BEGIN THE TUTORIAL



Acknowledgements

This project was done as part of an independent study project at the University of California, San Diego school of medicine. The heart sounds used in this tutorial were provided by Synapse Publishing. The lung sounds used in this program were provided by The R.A.L.E. Repository. The dermatology images used in this program were provided by Knowledge Weavers. The radiograph was supplied by the UCSD department of radiology.

I would like to thank Dr. Joe Ramsdell, Dr. Helene Hoffman and Dr. Peggy Wallace for all there advice and support. Thanks to the LRC staff for all their help in making this site available on the internet.

Ashkan Babaie
March 1998

Feedback would be appreciated: ababaie@ucsd.edu