Macleod’s Clinical Examination 15th Edition 2024

Sep 16, 2026

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Macleod's Clinical Examination, Latest Edition is a practical medical textbook designed to help learners turn patient histories and physical findings into structured clinical reasoning. Edited by Anna R. Dover, J. Alastair Innes and Karen Fairhurst, this latest edition develops the core skills needed to take an effective history, perform a proficient clinical examination, identify important symptoms and signs, and narrow the possibilities when building a differential diagnosis. Medical students, junior doctors, nurses and allied health practitioners can use the Macleod clinical examination approach both for everyday learning and preparation for clinical assessments. Readers looking for broader clinical examination and physical diagnosis resources will also find its system-based structure useful for connecting individual examination techniques with the reasoning behind them.
The material moves from general patient encounters, history taking and examination principles into detailed assessment of the cardiovascular, respiratory, gastrointestinal, nervous, visual, ENT, endocrine, reproductive, renal and musculoskeletal systems, as well as the skin, hair and nails. Later chapters address babies and children, patients with mental illness and learning disability, frailty, deterioration and end-of-life care before progressing to communicating a diagnosis and adapting examination skills for practice. This medical education and clinical skills textbook also explains the physical basis of clinical signs, introduces differential diagnosis and outlines logical initial investigations for individual body systems. Elsevier
For students searching for Macleod's Clinical Examination 15th edition PDF resources, the 15th edition also reflects updated clinical practice and includes material intended to support assessment preparation and diagnostic reasoning. The official edition is accompanied by 32 clinical examination videos, including new demonstrations covering areas such as obstetric and gynaecological examination, fluid balance, hand and wrist examination, foot and ankle examination, and the timed up and go test. Evolve You can read the complete resource online for free and download it for offline study, making it convenient to revisit examination sequences, history-taking principles and system-specific findings while studying on a computer, tablet or mobile device.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryHealthcare

FormatPDF

Pages441

Reading Time18 h 31 min

AccessFree to download

Preface

Acknowledgements

How to Make the Most of This Book and Associated Multimedia

Clinical Examination Videos

Contributors

SECTION 1 PRINCIPLES OF CLINICAL HISTORY AND EXAMINATION

Managing Clinical Encounters with Patients

General Aspects of History Taking

General Aspects of Examination

SECTION 2 SYSTEM-BASED EXAMINATION

The Cardiovascular System

The Respiratory System

The Gastrointestinal System

The Nervous System

The Visual System

The Ear, Nose and Throat

The Endocrine System

The Reproductive System

The Renal System

The Musculoskeletal System

The Skin, Hair and Nails

SECTION 3 APPLYING HISTORY AND EXAMINATION SKILLS IN SPECIFIC SITUATIONS

Babies and Children

Patients with Mental Illness and Learning Disability

The Frail Patient

The Deteriorating Patient

The Dying Patient

SECTION 4 PUTTING HISTORY AND EXAMINATION SKILLS TO USE

Reaching and Communicating a Diagnosis

Adapting Skills for Practice

Preparing for Assessment

Index

4 • MANAGING CLINICAL ENCOUNTERS WITH PATIENTS

The clinical encounter

The clinical encounter between a patient and doctor lies at the heart of most clinical practice. At its simplest, it is the means by which people who are ill, or believe themselves to be ill, seek the advice of a clinician whom they trust. Traditionally, the clinical encounter is conducted face to face, although non‑face‑to‑face or remote consultation using the telephone, video technology or online is increasingly common. This chapter describes the general principles that underpin clinical interactions with patients.

Reasons for the encounter

The majority of people who experience symptoms of ill health do not seek professional advice. For the minority who do seek help, the decision to consult is usually based on a complex interplay of physical, psychological and social factors (Box 1.1). The perceived seriousness of the symptoms and the severity of the illness experience can influence whether patients seek help. The perceived severity of symptoms is determined by their intensity, the patient’s familiarity with them and their duration and frequency. Beyond this, patients try to understand their symptoms based on their own prior experience and from information they have gathered from a range of sources, including family and friends, print and broadcast media and the internet and social media. Patients who present with a symptom are significantly more likely to believe or worry that their symptom indicates a serious or fatal condition than non‑consulters with similar symptoms; for example, a family history of sudden death from heart disease may affect how a person interprets an episode of chest pain. Patients also weigh up the relative costs (financial or other, such as inconvenience) and benefits of consulting. The expectation of benefit from a consultation (e.g. in terms of symptom relief or legitimisation of time off work) is a powerful predictor of consultation. There may also be times when other priorities in patients’ lives are more important than their symptoms of ill health and deter or delay consultation. It is important to consider the timing of the consultation. Why has the patient presented now? Sometimes it is not the experience of symptoms themselves that provokes consultation but something else in the patients’ lives that triggers them to seek help (Box 1.2).

A range of cultural factors may also influence help‑seeking behaviour. Examples of person‑specific factors that reduce the propensity to consult include stoicism, self‑reliance, guilt, unwillingness to acknowledge psychological distress, and embarrassment about lifestyle factors such as addictions. These factors may vary between patients and also in the same person in different circumstances and may be influenced by gender, education, social class and ethnicity.

The clinical environment

You should take all reasonable steps to ensure that the consultation is conducted in a calm, private environment. For face‑to‑face clinic interactions the layout of the consulting room is important and furniture should be arranged to put the patient at ease (Fig. 1.1A) by avoiding confrontational positioning across a table and the incursion of computer screens between patient

1.1 Deciding to a consult a doctor

‑ Perceived susceptibility or vulnerability to illness
‑ Perceived severity of symptoms
‑ Perceived costs of consulting
‑ Perceived benefits of consulting

1.2 Triggers to consultation

‑ Interpersonal crisis
‑ Interference with social or personal relations
‑ Sanctioning or pressure from family or friends
‑ Interference with work or physical activity
‑ Reaching the limit of tolerance of symptoms

Fig. 1.1 Seating arrangements. A In this friendly seating arrangement the clinician sits next to the patient, at an angle. B Barriers to communication are set up by an oppositional/confrontational seating arrangement. The desk acts as a barrier, and the clinician is distracted by looking at a computer screen that is not easily viewable by the patient.

如何提高临床 encounter 的效率？

临床 encounter 中医生需要注意哪些方面？

非面对面的临床 encounter 有哪些优势和劣势？

FAQs

What does Macleod's Clinical Examination 15th Edition cover?

It covers history taking, general examination principles and systematic examination of the major body systems, including cardiovascular, respiratory, gastrointestinal, neurological, visual, ENT, endocrine, reproductive, renal and musculoskeletal assessment. It also addresses clinical reasoning, diagnosis, communication and preparation for assessment.

Who should use Macleod's Clinical Examination 15th Edition?

It is primarily designed for medical students and early-career clinicians, while also serving junior doctors, nurses, nurse practitioners, paramedics and other healthcare professionals who need structured training in patient history taking and physical examination.

How does Macleod's Clinical Examination 15th Edition help with clinical exam preparation?

The textbook connects examination techniques with the physical basis of clinical signs, differential diagnosis and appropriate initial investigations. Its system-based chapters and dedicated assessment material make it useful for practising structured clinical encounters and preparing for practical examinations.

What is new about Macleod's Clinical Examination 15th Edition?

The edition includes updated text and images, current approaches to clinical decision-making, expanded guidance for adapting examination skills to different situations and 32 supplementary clinical examination videos, including several demonstrations produced specifically for this edition.

Where can I download Macleod's Clinical Examination 15th Edition PDF for offline reading?

You can download it directly from this webpage for offline reading and use the resource while revising history taking, physical examination techniques, clinical signs and system-based assessment.

Sep 16, 2026

2,021

Upload by Riley