COMLEX Osteopathic Medicine

Answer - A - Anemia can cause a patient to feel tired and have cold extremities. It is important to order a CBC with differential to assess the patient for this condition. A CBC or H & H alone may not report anomalies in red blood cell morphology that can help diagnose what type of anemia the patient may have. In addition, women have been shown in medical studies to make excuses for their symptoms or to ignore symptoms more often than men. Providers have also been known to discount female symptoms, believing that female patients are too sensitive. It is extremely important for a provider to listen carefully to what a patient is saying and not discount symptoms based on gender or on the patient’s own reasoning for their symptoms.