title: How to write a case report.
abstract: Since before Hippocrates, case reports have provided a rich resource for teaching and research in medicine. Case reports are published by many prominent journals--more than 140,000 case reports are indexed in MEDLINE from 1996 to present--and a number of narrative guidelines for the preparation of case reports have appeared in the medical literature. To facilitate the preparation of case reports, we reviewed the existing guidelines and a random sampling of published case reports and created a fill-in-the-blanks worksheet for physicians to use to capture unique scientific observations. Although originally developed to assist family practice residents to write case reports, the case report worksheet can be used by physicians in any practice setting and any discipline to collect and report interesting, unusual, or newsworthy cases.
authors.affiliation: Department of Family and Preventive Medicine, University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center, USA. laine-mccarthy@ouhsc.edu
authors.forename: L H
authors.initials: LH
authors.lastname: McCarthy
authors.forename: K E
authors.initials: KE
authors.lastname: Reilly
mesh_terms: D017408:Guidelines as Topic; D006801:Humans; D008499:Medical Records / Q000592:standards*; D011643:Publishing / Q000592:standards; D014956:Writing / Q000592:standards*