@TheOncoPT – Dr. Elise K Cantu (00:19)
If you haven’t started your oncology case report yet and you feel that deadline creeping in on you, take a breath. You are likely not as behind as what it feels like. In this video, I’m going to walk you through what are the next steps that you need to take to actually finish your case report by that deadline, including what to do in this next 24 hours.

The only thing that absolutely has to happen today is you need to choose your case report topic. Everything else that you need to do depends on this exact decision. Now, if you don’t have your case report topic decided yet, this is where my free tool, Case Report Idea Generator comes in handy.

Report Idea Generator, I will walk you through specific brainstorming prompts to help you narrow down your memorable patient cases, the cases that challenged you, the cases with unexpected outcomes, and the cases that helped you grow as a clinician so that you can identify your strongest case report options, validate them, and ultimately choose a case report topic confidently.

So if you don’t have your case report topic chosen yet, stop watching after this and go use Case Report Idea Generator that I’ve linked below for you. Then come back and hit play.

Now that you have your case report topic chosen, it is time for you to outline your case. Now let me be clear, this is not a polished, perfect outline. We are purposely and deliberately lowering the bar that you’ve probably set for yourself. Because when you’re in this crunch for time position, perfectionism is your literal enemy. You are.

never going to get this case report done if you’re constantly trying to go for perfect. We need this case report done,

Not perfect yet.

Here’s how to outline your case report. Start with the case presentation. This is what actually happened with your patient. From start to finish, from eval to discharge, or whatever that end of the plan of care looks like for your patient. This is not a time for interpretation. You are just stating facts. And again, bullet points outlining here, this happened, then this happened, then this happened, then this happened.

Then you’re going to outline the introduction of your case report. A simple framework that I teach is what is known.

what is not known, and then what this case adds. And here’s what I mean by all of this. So you’re going to start by outlining what is known about this condition, the patient population, the treatment, the intervention, or whatever that phenomenon of interest is in your case, whatever the focus of your case report topic is. Then you’re going to outline what isn’t known or what’s unknown about this case report focus.

And then finally, you’re gonna bring it all home to your specific patient case and you are going to state clearly what it adds to the larger oncology PT conversation and our field as a whole.

Next step is to outline your discussion. And you’re gonna start this process by outlining the key feature of your case. Like what is the big kind of topic or focus of your case report. And without doing research, okay.

with just what you know in your brain right here right now, you are going to compare and contrast your case to the literature. Now it’s okay if you don’t know all the ins and outs, all the intricacies of how your case report topic is the same or is different to the literature. Okay, we are doing all of this without doing the literature review yet. This is on purpose because we are outlining at this point. It’s not time for research. So you are going to outline what is the same.

What is different? What is unique about this particular case compared to what we generally know about oncology physical therapy?

Keep in mind you are not starting with the research yet. That comes later. We are still in the outline phase and you must have a solid foundation of outlining before you start to wander down the research rabbit hole.

discussion by offering a plausible explanation for the outcomes that you saw in this patient case. And then what are the take-home lessons from other clinicians who will read your case report?

Remember as you’re doing this outlining process that you are working towards a minimum viable outline, not a perfect polished outline or perfect polished case report. This is your strong foundation that you need so that you can then build a beautiful house on top of it. Or if we’re continuing with the writing metaphor, draft a beautiful case report upon the solid foundation of your outline. This is foundational work. We have to have the foundation done before

you can start to build the house on top of it, which is what we need to do with your case report.

a lot of PTs are tempted when they’re in this process.

to skip getting feedback from others, to skip having others read their case report and provide constructive criticism. When in fact, that is what you need, perhaps more when you’re in this time crunch. See, on the shortened timeline, there is no time for wasted drafts.

This means that you need real-time feedback on if your case report is working or not, if you’re addressing the prompts accurately, and if you’re adequately demonstrating your clinical expertise through your writing in your case report.

Having guidance and feedback earlier in the case report writing process prevents you from having to redo work later with the time that you frankly don’t have.

If you’re ready to finish your case report and submit it, knowing that you have done everything possible to demonstrate that you are an oncology specialist, then you need Case Report Writing Workshop. This is the proven plan that is going to take you from staring at that blank page in front of you to a finished case report that you can confidently and competently submit. Save your seat today at the OncopT.com slash workshop, or you can find the link below in the description.

Your action step for today.

is to pick your case report topic using Case Report Idea Generator if you need to. And then once you have that locked down, if you want a proven plan to writing your case report instead of figuring out a loan under a major time crunch, that’s exactly what Case Report Writing Workshop is for.

In the next

video, I’m going to walk you through the last minute case report checklist that you need to save yourself from mistakes that can potentially derail your entire application cycle.

And if you found this video helpful, make sure that you’re subscribed. I put out new content for oncology physical therapists every week, and I’ll see you in the next one.