Understanding The SAMPLE History

The SAMPLE history usually comes up in the first few weeks of EMT class. It’s such a widely accepted standard that it appears in the National Registry medical and trauma skills station as well as the EMT National Standard Curriculum. As far as subjective patient history’s go…SAMPLE is the gold standard. Like anything else in medicine, widespread utilization also comes with widespread misunderstanding. The SAMPLE history is an educational gold standard for a reason. It’s a very effective tool for remembering the major components of a medical history.  It’s also often misused and highly inadequate when taught and utilized at face value. Let’s review the SAMPLE history and talk a bit about how to use it correctly to get all the juicy bits of medical history that you need when treating our patient. First, to make sure we’re all on the same page, let’s review the SAMPLE acronym. SAMPLE is a six part subjective assessment that covers a good deal of critical information that is typically gathered in a basic subjective patient assessment. To review the difference between subjective and objective assessments, check out the SOAP reporting format. SAMPLE stands for: S – Symptoms (Signs are important but they are objective.)A – AllergiesM – MedicationsP – Past Medical HistoryL – Last Oral Intake (Sometimes also Last Menstrual Cycle.)E – Events Leading Up To Present Illness / Injury That’s pretty straight forward. But let’s dive a little...
Source: The EMT Spot - Category: Emergency Medicine Authors: Tags: EMT Source Type: blogs