Epistaxis – Board-Style Questions

What this deck covers

epistaxis 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. Where it comes from
2. The right way to stop it
3. Why it keeps happening
4. What not to do
5. Twenty minutes and still going
6. One side at a time
7. The whistling nose
8. Down the back of the throat
9. After the football
10. Why it cannot wait
11. Cream in the nostril
12. Ask before you prescribe
13. One nostril, getting worse
14. Leave that one alone
15. Looking beyond the nose
16. Black in the stool
17. What the future holds
18. When the packing fails

Diagnoses and management options tested

Across the 18 cases you are asked to choose between options such as: High in the roof of the nose near the skull base, Pinch the soft part of the nose and lean forwards, An inherited clotting disorder, Pinching the soft part of the nose for a full ten minutes, A topical vasoconstrictor on a swab, then reassess, Both sides treated at the same visit, A permanent loss of the sense of smell, The front of the septum on the right, A collection of blood under the lining of the septum, The blood will clot and be hard to remove, Cautery of the septum under general anaesthetic, Whether he has had a recent cold, A vascular growth at the back of the nose, It is painful without an anaesthetic.

Clinical pearls from this deck

• Most childhood nosebleeds come from Little’s area.
• Pinch the soft part of the nose, and lean forwards.
• Dry crusts and picking cause most childhood bleeds.
• Tipping the head back sends blood to the stomach.
• A vasoconstrictor swab buys time before packing.
• Cauterise only one side of the septum at a time.

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 ENT and ophthalmology case decks · pediatric reference values.