GCPS Primary Exam case studies
GCPS Primary Exam · Put your knowledge to work in context.
The GCPS Primary Examination is the entry-point assessment of the Ghana College of Physicians and Surgeons, the body that describes itself as providing specialist education in medicine, surgery and related disciplines. Candidates sit it as the gateway into College residency training, and the College's faculty structure shows the breadth it must serve: the Division of Physicians spans Family Medicine, Internal Medicine, Laboratory Medicine, Oncology and Radiotherapy, Paediatrics and Child Health, Psychiatry, Public Health and Radiology, while the Division of Surgeons spans Anaesthesia, Dental Surgery and Subspecialties, Emergency Medicine, Neurosurgery, Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Ophthalmology, Orthopaedic and Trauma, Otorhinolaryngology, and Surgery and Subspecialties. The GCPS Primary Exam case studies are 5 cases and about 4,024 words.
1Hyponatraemia in a woman starting a thiazide while on an SSRI
A 68-year-old woman is brought to the emergency department by her daughter with 2 days of confusion and one episode of vomiting. She started hydrochlorothiazide 25 mg daily three weeks earlier for newly diagnosed hypertension and has taken sertraline 50 mg daily for four years.
790 words, about 4 min2Persistent jaundice with pale stools in a 24-day-old breastfed infant
A 24-day-old boy is brought to clinic because his jaundice has not faded since day 4 of life. He was born at term by spontaneous vaginal delivery, birth weight 3.40 kg, now 3.15 kg.
778 words, about 4 min3Wedding-reception diarrhoeal outbreak in a rural district
You are the district medical officer in a rural district of 210,000 people. On Monday morning the local clinic reports that 41 people who attended a wedding reception on Saturday evening have presented with watery diarrhoea and abdominal cramps; two are dehydrated and one has been referred to the regional hospital.
809 words, about 4 min4Displaced femoral neck fracture in an older woman taking apixaban
An 82-year-old woman is brought in at 22:00 after falling at home. She has a displaced intracapsular fracture of the left femoral neck.
830 words, about 4 min5Severe pre-eclampsia at 33 weeks in a district hospital without a neonatal unit
A 31-year-old woman, gravida 2 para 1, presents at 33 weeks and 4 days' gestation to a district hospital with a two-day history of frontal headache and 'flashing lights'. She had one previous uncomplicated vaginal delivery at term.
817 words, about 4 min