Clinical Topic Summary Guidelines

Having a standardised approach to writing articles ensures that readers have a consistent experience and that the website, as a whole, feels cohesive. As a result, we’ve created some guidelines to assist you when writing your clinical topic summary.

If you are writing an article that covers several clinical conditions (e.g. an overview of dermatological emergencies) then review our multiple clinical topic overview guidelines to see how to structure this type of article.

Important points

• Articles should provide a succinct overview of the relevant topic to aid students in their revision.
• Excessive amounts of detail can make articles harder to read and less useful as a revision aid, so make sure the article is focused.
• Articles should be written in full sentences and not simply as a list of bullet points. The aim is to create an article which is enjoyable to read.
• UK spelling should be adopted for all articles.
• Make sure to read our article style guide on bullet points, capitalisation and general text styling as it’s important these remain consistent between articles.
• Articles need to be referenced appropriately: see our article style guidelines for more details.
• Any images used need to have an appropriate licence which allows re-use, see our article style guidelines for finding appropriately licenced images.
• All articles should be reviewed by a senior wherever possible.

Useful resources

There are many great online resources which can be useful to use as research and write your article including:

• Patient.info Professional References: this website has an article for most clinical conditions which is detailed and well referenced.
• NICE Clinical Knowledge Summaries (CKS): this resource provides clinical summaries that distil down NICE guidance.

It is important that you don’t simply copy and paste content from other sources. Instead, you should intelligently summarise the key points that are relevant to medical students.

Avoiding excessive detail

It is essential that you avoid including excessive amounts of detail in your article. Your article should provide a succinct overview which is ideal for final-year medical students wanting to quickly revise a specific topic. 

Introduction

Your article should begin with a brief explanation of the condition or topic that the article is covering. If the article is about a specific condition (e.g. ectopic pregnancy), you should begin by defining what the condition is. It may also be useful to include one or two key points about epidemiology (e.g. the prevalence, the incidence of condition) to help the reader gauge the topic’s practical relevance. Please include references, where appropriate.

Example

Aetiology

This section should provide information on the underlying aetiology of the condition.

If warranted, you may need to include a focused sub-section on anatomy or pathophysiology of the condition, to ensure the aetiology is clearly explained. Avoid going into excessive detail and only include a brief overview that remains clinically relevant.

For example, it may be valuable to include an image and/or short description of the uterine anatomy, with associated sections of the fallopian tubes, to explain where and how ectopic pregnancy arises.

Risk factors

This section should cover the most important risk factors for the condition. Risk factors should be listed according to the descending order of prevalence where possible. Avoid trying to include every possible risk factor and instead focus on those which are most relevant.

Example

Clinical features

This section should provide a succinct summary of the condition’s typical clinical features. It can be broken down into:

• History: a summary of the symptoms a patient may typically present with. Other important areas to cover in the history can also be included here if relevant (e.g. menstrual history). You can subtly link to our history guides if relevant (e.g. link the phrase menstrual history).
• Clinical examination: a summary of the import clinical examinations that should be performed and the clinical signs associated with the condition. You can subtly link to our examinations guides if relevant (e.g. link the phrase cardiovascular exam).

Avoid trying to include every possible symptom or clinical sign associated with a condition and instead focus on those which are most common and relevant.

Example

Differential diagnoses

This section should briefly summarise what other diagnoses can present in a similar way to the primary condition and therefore should be considered.

There is often a wide range of potential differential diagnoses, but you should make sure to only include those felt to be most relevant.

Avoid including excessive information on the clinical features of the differential diagnoses as this can detract from the focus of the article.

Example

Investigations

This section should provide a succinct summary of the important investigations that should be carried out if this condition is suspected.

You should break down this section into sub-sections based upon the type of investigation:

• Bedside investigations (e.g. capillary blood glucose, ECG)
• Laboratory investigations (e.g. blood tests, bacterial cultures)
• Imaging (e.g. CT abdomen, echocardiogram)
• Other investigations  (e.g. cardiac exercise stress test, risk scoring systems)

Provide some information beside each investigation, after a colon, about why the investigation is performed and if relevant, what the expected result might be (e.g. “Urinalysis: to rule out urinary tract infection”). You can include a second sentence if needed to provide further information (see urinalysis and serum hCG in the example below).

Again, make sure to keep this section focused.

Example

Diagnosis

This section should be included if there are relevant diagnostic criteria which need to be met for a diagnosis to be made. If the diagnostic criteria are very brief (like in the example below) they may be included, but if they are more extensive, you should try to provide a brief summary and link to the criteria for students who want to learn more.

If diagnosis also involves the staging of the condition, this could also be briefly summarised, however, unless the staging information is extremely brief, it is more appropriate to link to the information.

Example

Management

This section needs to provide a brief overview of management options for the condition. It is very important that you avoid going too deep on the management specifics of the current guidelines whilst still providing the level of information a final year medical student would be expected to know for exams. The aim is to provide an easy to read overview of the general themes of management and then link to the official guidelines if students want to go deeper on the topic.

Example

Complications

This section needs to provide a brief summary of the potential complications of the condition. Again, include these in order of descending prevalence where possible. Avoid trying to include every possible complication and focus on those medical students would be expected to know.

Example

Key points

The section needs to provide a summary of the important points a student should take away from the article. You should structure the key points as follows, using a maximum of two bullet points for each:

• Definition
• Aetiology/risk factors
• Clinical features
• Investigations/diagnosis
• Management
• Prognosis/complications

Example

References

See our article style guide for further details on how to structure references, including those for images.

Reviewer credits

At the bottom of your article, please cite the name and position of your senior reviewer. Also, indicate whether this person has given their approval to have their name published.

Example