Seven cardinal questions for the patient with ear, nose or throat complaints: Review

The incidence of otolaryngological problems in general medicine practice is highly seasonal and approaches 25% in some months of the year. Accurate diagnosis in the otolaryngology office often requires the use of binocular microscopy, nasal endoscopy, and flexible laryngoscopy, none of which are available in a general medicine office. Therefore, history taking and physical examination techniques available in the non-otolaryngology office are of utmost importance. Using evidence-based history taking for ear, nose, and throat (ENT) problems facilitates dealing with patients who present with otolaryngologic complaints. In this paper, I present 7 cardinal questions to be asked when taking the history of a patient with ENT complaints.