Short Bowel Syndrome – Board-Style Questions

What this deck covers

short bowel syndrome 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. The ward census
2. Two babies compared
3. Slowly less drip
4. Why keep the gut busy
5. Early high output
6. Poor gain on full calories
7. Spells after sweets
8. Pain in the loin
9. Making the label
10. A drug to help adaptation
11. Thirsty with a stoma
12. A dilated segment
13. Fever on the drip
14. The third infection
15. Running out of veins
16. A scaly rash
17. Pain after meals
18. Calcium will not rise

Diagnoses and management options tested

Across the 18 cases you are asked to choose between options such as: Gastroschisis complicated by atresia, A retained ileocaecal valve and whole colon, Regrowth of the length that was removed, They lower the risk of a central line infection, Gastric acid hypersecretion from lost gut hormones, An unrecognised deficiency of thyroid hormone, Hypoglycaemia after rapid sugar absorption, Struvite calculi from a long-standing urinary infection, Intravenous support still required after 60 days, A somatostatin analogue, Drink as much tap water as possible to keep up, Longitudinal lengthening that splits the bowel lengthwise, Paired cultures, then antibiotics via the line, Routine replacement of the central catheter every few weeks.

Clinical pearls from this deck

• Infant short bowel: most often after enterocolitis.
• Valve and colon kept: a better chance of weaning.
• Adaptation: taller villi and a wider remaining gut.
• Feed the gut: luminal nutrients drive adaptation.
• Early after resection: acid hypersecretion and high output.
• Stoma child not growing: check the urine salt level.

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 Gastroenterology Board Questions case decks · pediatric reference values.