Septic Arthritis of Childhood – Board-Style Questions

What this deck covers

septic arthritis of childhood in 18 board-style clinical cases with worked explanations. Each case gives you a clinical vignette, four options, the correct answer, and an explanation of why each of the other three is wrong, with the guideline or textbook it follows named on the answer.

Board-style teaching questions for paediatricians and trainees preparing for paediatric board, MRCPCH and licensing examinations. Written from published guidelines and standard paediatric textbooks, with the source named on every answer.

The 18 cases, in order

1. How much it hurts
2. The commonest site
3. Nothing to see
4. Reading the sample
5. Why he will not move
6. A teenager with a rash
7. Two weeks after the runs
8. Slow and quiet
9. Joints on day five
10. A second swelling
11. Do not skip this
12. The first drug
13. An unprotected child
14. Dealing with the hip
15. The knee instead
16. Why the rush
17. After the operation
18. Following progress

Diagnoses and management options tested

Across the 18 cases you are asked to choose between options such as: Swelling that can be seen by standing at the end of the couch, The knee, which is affected more often than any other joint, Swelling has not yet had time to develop this early in the course of the illness, A red cell count raised far out of proportion to the white cell count present, Pus under pressure inside a closed space, which the child guards, Chickenpox, which explains both the fever and the spots, A fracture of the upper tibia sustained at the barbecue, Growing pains, which are common at this age and are worse at night, An immune arthritis appearing on the fifth day of meningococcal illness, A second infected joint, requiring its own washout, A throat swab taken from the child in the anaesthetic room, Nitrofurantoin, which reaches high concentrations in the urine but nowhere else, Haemophilus influenzae type b, since she has had no vaccinations, Antibiotics alone, with review in the morning.

Clinical pearls from this deck

• The infected joint refuses the first few degrees.
• The knee first, the hip second: know those two.
• A deep joint never looks swollen: judge it by movement.
• Over fifty thousand cells, nearly all neutrophils.
• A guarded joint is a joint under pressure.
• Pustules plus sore tendon sheaths: think gonococcus.

Work through the deck once for recognition, then again a week later to test yourself — each question gives the answer and explains why every other option fails.

More from this system: all MSK and orthopaedics case decks · pediatric reference values.