Select one of the two questions from the discussion questions listed below.

Be sure to respond to the question using the lessons and vocabulary found in the reading. Justify your answers using examples and reasoning. Support your answers with examples and research and cite your research using APA format.

Start reviewing and responding to the postings of your classmates as early in the week as possible. Respond to at least two of your classmates’ posts. Participate in the discussion by asking a question, providing a statement of clarification, providing a point of view with a rationale, challenging an aspect of the discussion, or indicating a relationship between two or more lines of reasoning in the discussion.

Discussion: Medical Diagnosis

Discussion: Medical Diagnosis

Discussion Question 1

MP is a sixty-five-year-old male who has recently retired. He is coming in today for a complaint about pain in his back, knees, and hips. He reports that he has been experiencing this pain for the past six months, and he has been able to control the symptoms with OTC Advil. He describes the pain as stiffness and occasional shooting and aching pains radiating all over. He denies any swelling of his joints. However, the OTC medications are not working well, and he is here to see whether there are any other options he might try. On physical exam, he has tenderness on palpation on the right and left hips and both knees are positive for crepitus. All blood work is within normal limits. Answer the following questions:

What additional information would you like to have? Does MP need any additional testing?
What possible issues could contribute to his symptoms?
He asks about injections to both knees to increase his comfort. How would you respond to that?
What would your treatment plan be?
For medications, include dosages and schedules. Include highlights of patient teaching and/or lifestyle alterations. Support your decisions with at least one reference to a published clinical guideline and one peer-reviewed publication.

Discussion Question 2

EP is a twenty-five-year-old African American female who has just moved to town and comes to the clinic for her first visit. She has been diagnosed with fibromyalgia. She reports that her previous primary care physician (PCP) was treating her with opiates only. She has been taking hydrocodone/ibuprofen 7.5 mg/200 mg four times daily but notes that this is not helping her. She is asking you for a refill of this medication and any additional treatment you can advise. On physical exam, she is in moderate distress and reports pain when being touched. Answer the following questions:

How would you validate the diagnosis of fibromyalgia?
How would you handle EP’s request for ongoing hydrocodone? Locate any evidence of the efficacy of this treatment for fibromyalgia.
Assuming that the diagnosis is correct, what would your treatment plan be?
Would you recommend any nontraditional therapies?
For medications, include dosages and schedules. Include highlights of patient teaching and/or lifestyle alterations. Support your decisions with at least one reference to a published clinical guideline and one peer-reviewed publication.

You must proofread your paper. But do not strictly rely on your computer’s spell-checker and grammar-checker; failure to do so indicates a lack of effort on your part and you can expect your grade to suffer accordingly. Papers with numerous misspelled words and grammatical mistakes will be penalized. Read over your paper – in silence and then aloud – before handing it in and make corrections as necessary. Often it is advantageous to have a friend proofread your paper for obvious errors. Handwritten corrections are preferable to uncorrected mistakes.

Use a standard 10 to 12 point (10 to 12 characters per inch) typeface. Smaller or compressed type and papers with small margins or single-spacing are hard to read. It is better to let your essay run over the recommended number of pages than to try to compress it into fewer pages.

Likewise, large type, large margins, large indentations, triple-spacing, increased leading (space between lines), increased kerning (space between letters), and any other such attempts at “padding” to increase the length of a paper are unacceptable, wasteful of trees, and will not fool your professor.

The paper must be neatly formatted, double-spaced with a one-inch margin on the top, bottom, and sides of each page. When submitting hard copy, be sure to use white paper and print out using dark ink. If it is hard to read your essay, it will also be hard to follow your argument.

 

ADDITIONAL INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE CLASS

Discussion Questions (DQ)

Initial responses to the DQ should address all components of the questions asked, include a minimum of one scholarly source, and be at least 250 words.
Successful responses are substantive (i.e., add something new to the discussion, engage others in the discussion, well-developed idea) and include at least one scholarly source.
One or two sentence responses, simple statements of agreement or “good post,” and responses that are off-topic will not count as substantive. Substantive responses should be at least 150 words.
I encourage you to incorporate the readings from the week (as applicable) into your responses.
Weekly Participation

Your initial responses to the mandatory DQ do not count toward participation and are graded separately.
In addition to the DQ responses, you must post at least one reply to peers (or me) on three separate days, for a total of three replies.
Participation posts do not require a scholarly source/citation (unless you cite someone else’s work).
Part of your weekly participation includes viewing the weekly announcement and attesting to watching it in the comments. These announcements are made to ensure you understand everything that is due during the week.
APA Format and Writing Quality

Familiarize yourself with APA format and practice using it correctly. It is used for most writing assignments for your degree. Visit the Writing Center in the Student Success Center, under the Resources tab in LoudCloud for APA paper templates, citation examples, tips, etc. Points will be deducted for poor use of APA format or absence of APA format (if required).
Cite all sources of information! When in doubt, cite the source. Paraphrasing also requires a citation.
I highly recommend using the APA Publication Manual, 6th edition.
Use of Direct Quotes

I discourage overutilization of direct quotes in DQs and assignments at the Masters’ level and deduct points accordingly.
As Masters’ level students, it is important that you be able to critically analyze and interpret information from journal articles and other resources. Simply restating someone else’s words does not demonstrate an understanding of the content or critical analysis of the content.
It is best to paraphrase content and cite your source.
LopesWrite Policy

For assignments that need to be submitted to LopesWrite, please be sure you have received your report and Similarity Index (SI) percentage BEFORE you do a “final submit” to me.
Once you have received your report, please review it. This report will show you grammatical, punctuation, and spelling errors that can easily be fixed. Take the extra few minutes to review instead of getting counted off for these mistakes.
Review your similarities. Did you forget to cite something? Did you not paraphrase well enough? Is your paper made up of someone else’s thoughts more than your own?
Visit the Writing Center in the Student Success Center, under the Resources tab in LoudCloud for tips on improving your paper and SI score.
Late Policy

The university’s policy on late assignments is 10% penalty PER DAY LATE. This also applies to late DQ replies.
Please communicate with me if you anticipate having to submit an assignment late. I am happy to be flexible, with advance notice. We may be able to work out an extension based on extenuating circumstances.
If you do not communicate with me before submitting an assignment late, the GCU late policy will be in effect.
I do not accept assignments that are two or more weeks late unless we have worked out an extension.
As per policy, no assignments are accepted after the last day of class. Any assignment submitted after midnight on the last day of class will not be accepted for grading.
Communication

Communication is so very important. There are multiple ways to communicate with me:
Questions to Instructor Forum: This is a great place to ask course content or assignment questions. If you have a question, there is a good chance one of your peers does as well. This is a public forum for the class.
Individual Forum: This is a private forum to ask me questions or send me messages. This will be checked at least once every 24 hours.