Workup For Syncope in Primary Care

cardiology clinical topics neurology tricky cases urgent care May 23, 2022

An image of a woman in a dark background with a text Diagnostic Approach To Syncope in Primary Care

Your patient passed out for no obvious reason, so their family insisted that they see their PCP. Now they’re waiting in your exam room, and you need a roadmap to determine what happened, what is going on, and how we got here.

If even thinking about a patient with syncope makes you feel a little lightheaded yourself, you are in the right place.

Workup for Syncope in Primary Care for New NPs

Let’s talk about how to approach the visit for the patient with syncope in primary care, why you will want to work backward to assess this patient, the four main categories of syncope, and more.

✅ Things that can look like syncope – but aren’t

✅ Specific, targeted questions to ask the patient with syncope

✅ Medications that can play a role in a syncopal episode

✅ Why family history is important in syncope, and which questions to ask

✅ Red flags in a patient with syncope

Syncope can feel like a huge problem to solve as a new grad. With some guidance and plenty of practice, it gets easier to narrow down. Having a framework to approach the visit will boost your confidence and make these visits more manageable.