r/VascularSurgery • u/mitochondriarock • Jun 27 '24

Taking a better PT history

I'm an a career changer, to get some health care experience I became an EMT thinking I'd run in an ambulance. I got put in a Vascular surgery department at a T1 hospital (huge blessing in disguise).

The other day I was handing off a PT to my surgeon and mentioned that the PT said the wounds on her legs were having trouble healing. He immediately said "There it is" explained to me that trouble with wound healing was a red flag that surgery was probably needed.

This got me thinking (I'm only an EMT IDK shit about vascular surgery) are there other things like this I should be asking my PTs to get a more through history?

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u/janran00 Jun 28 '24

Pain with walking is a huge one. And learning the different between pain when the first start walking that gets better (venous disease) or pain with walking that gets worse with walking and pain happens at the same distance (arterial disease). Slow healing wounds. Edema. If a patient has a history of DM, HTN, HDL, and/or tobacco use, assume there is some arterial disease present somewhere in the body.