ABSTRACT
The clinical interview station represents a significant challenge, and in our review of past trainees, it is consistently the most daunting of the three stations due to the breadth of knowledge needed. The interviewers tend to follow a theme and this will be based on the clinical vignette that the people are presented with, whilst another examiner asks the people other related questions. Other important features to note include early satiety, nausea and vomiting, succussion splash, diarrhoea and signs of anaemia and shock. Strictures and hernia represent the majority of other causes of bowel obstruction; other rarer causes include foreign bodies, pelvic abscess and so on. Magnets represent a special subclass of foreign body since they can attract adjacent lying bowel and cause multiple complications including obstruction, fistula formation and pressure necrosis. Gastric outlet obstruction is usually the result of chronic pyloric stenosis, as ulcers heal with scar formation.
