Medical history taking and clinical examination in emergency and intensive care medicine

Medical history taking and the clinical examination are the traditional medical tools in making a diagnosis. Both the medical history taking and clinical examination have wrongly lost their practical value in modern emergency and intensive care medicine. When diagnosing an acutely or critically ill patient, the sequence, technique and focus of history taking and the clinical examination must be adapted to the individual situation and the condition of the patient. In this article the continuing central importance of both techniques in the diagnostics of emergency and intensive care patients is practically evaluated and discussed.