Cases written to be consulted, not read

A good SCA practice case is not a vignette with a model answer attached. It is a patient with a concern they have not yet voiced, a history that only opens up if you ask well, and a plan that has to be agreed rather than announced. These cases are written by a GP educator to behave that way.

What makes a practice case worth your time

Many revision resources present a case, then a model consultation. You read both, feel informed, and change nothing, because reading a good consultation is not the same as having one. A case earns its place if it forces you to make decisions under time pressure, responds differently depending on how you ask, and reveals something you would have missed had you not gone looking. Cases here are written to hold something back — an idea, a concern, an expectation — the way real patients do.

  • Common presentations where consultation structure is easiest to lose
  • Patients who hold something back until you ask the right question
  • Uncertainty and comorbidity rather than clean, single-diagnosis vignettes
  • Structured feedback after every case, so a consultation becomes information

The kinds of cases worth rotating through

Breadth matters, but not evenly. These are the contexts in which candidates most often lose structure, and therefore the ones most worth rehearsing.

  • Paediatrics, where the history comes from a worried parent and safety-netting must be specific.
  • Mental health, where risk assessment has to sit inside a conversation rather than interrupt it.
  • Prescribing, where the plan must be safe, explained, and genuinely acceptable to the patient.
  • Multimorbidity, where the task is prioritisation rather than diagnosis.
  • Ethics and uncertainty, where a defensible plan matters more than a confident one.
  • Time-pressured presentations, where the temptation is to abandon the ending.

Browse by clinical area

Each guide pairs the clinical content with the consultation behaviours that area tends to expose.

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