One of the things that I am most often asked (whether at work or giving and educational session) is "Do I have to do X? The guideline says to but..." So how does one discriminate between the must-do's and the would-be-good-if we-could recommendations? That's easy - apply the Everest-Lifeboat Test.
The Everest-Lifeboat Test is simply a two part thought exercise. The first part is to ask the following question: If the person involved was at an advanced stage of climbing Everest, should they turn back to get this test or treatment or could they reasonably continue to the summit? This part of the test asks if we are doing something just because we can rather than because we have to. We are purely focusing on the immediate need at this point.
The second part is the lifeboat question: Imagine that this patient was in a lifeboat, drifting across the ocean. When they are rescued several weeks later, would they most likely be fine despite their current clinical situation? This part of the Everest-Lifeboat Test forces us to look forward and consider the medium and long term consequences of action versus inaction.
Let's try this on a fictional patient.
A 10 year old child is brought to you having had an unexplained collapse. The history given to you is vague and there is no first hand account of the episode as it happened in front of classmates at school. However, in your further history taking, you find that this child has been having headaches that are worse in the morning. Also, teachers have noticed that there has been a deterioration in performance at school over the past four weeks. The child is slightly ataxic and has nystagmus on examination.
Concerned, you discuss the need for further investigations. In response, the parents say that they are happy to get the tests done but could it please wait a few weeks? They were just coming to get a medical opinion before they catch a plane to go away for a couple of weeks for their holiday. They were assuming that this was just a fainting episode and really only came to get their child checked because grandma told them to.
So, what do you think? This seems like a clear fail of the Everest-Lifeboat Test to me. I wouldn't be happy to put investigations on hold, despite the obvious inconvenience to the family.
How about this scenario?:
A 12 year old girl comes to be assessed. She was in school and had been stood in the heat when she began to feel sweaty and nauseous. Her vision went black and she slumped to the floor. She was reported to look pale and floppy. She was unresponsive for a few seconds and then came around slowly over a few minutes. A few hours later, she feels fine. There is no history of unexplained deaths in her family. When you examine her, all is normal.
You check a relevant guideline and see that it recommends that you perform a 12 lead ECG. She flatly refuses to have this test done and will not be persuaded. What should you do?
Applying the Everest-Lifeboat test would go like this:
Would you advise abandoning the final attempt on the summit? Well, she had an obvious precipitant and prodrome for her apparent faint. We can advise how to avoid precipitants and what to do if a prodrome is recognised. The event appears to be a classical vasovagal syncope without red flags in the history or examination. So, forcing the issue seems to be unnecessary.
Would a few weeks in a lifeboat be an issue? This brings us back to the guidelines that recommend investigation. What are they trying to protect us from? Much of the practice of ECG screening comes from adult medicine, where pathology is much more likely. In paediatrics, there are a few arrhythmias that we need to worry about, but a standard 12 lead ECG is not the perfect screening test that we might hope it is. The sensitivity and specificity of 12 lead ECGs in children is poor (1). Ask yourself why the guidelines don't say, "Don't bother with history and examination. The ECG is the crucial bit of information."
A quick look at the guidelines gives some useful insights to help us with the Everest-Lifeboat Test. The NICE guideline "Transient loss of consciousness (‘blackouts’) management in adults and young people" (2) actually only relates to the over 16 year-olds. This in itself acknowledges that an adult approach cannot be extrapolated to the child who has had a collapse.
Then there is the European Society of Cardiology's guideline for the diagnosis and management of syncope (version 2009). (3) It does take the view that children and adults can be investigated similarly and recommends ECG for all children who have had a faint. However, this recommendation seems to be based on the assumption that an ECG is clearly useful additional information and fails to consider the possibility that a thorough history and examination gets you to a point where and ECG would not add value.
The American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association guideline (4) does seem to consider this possibility. There is a strong emphasis on the value of a good history and examination. Regarding ECG, it points out that ECG is a simple and available test that might identify a tendency to arrhythmia. However it also states: "Despite the benefit of identifying a likely cause or potential clue about the cause of syncope from the ECG, prospective studies did not conclude that ECG findings significantly affected subsequent management. The prognostic value of an abnormal ECG in patients with syncope has been questioned as well."
So there it is. An honest declaration that, while the experts would recommend that we all do a test, it is unclear what the value of the test is.
I know that it might seem as though I just want to avoid doing work here, but there are genuine risks with tests. The first risk is that they stop us from thinking. If the sensitivity and specificity of history and examination is excellent, while that of ECG is poor, why introduce a deceptive piece of information? The second risk is that of getting information that I don't want. If I do an ECG on a child, it is almost always to look at the rate, rhythm and QT interval. While those things are usually fine, the diagnostic report usually sports a bit of LVH and right atrial enlargement. Of course the child has neither of these things, but the machine is just trying to make sense of the voltage it has been given. If I were to take these things seriously, I might cause unnecessary anxiety for the child and parents.
So, what does my patient really need? I need to take a good history and establish that the episode that sounds like a faint truly sounds like a faint. This means asking about the three P's of vasovagal syncope.
When we are forced out of our normal process, it is a good time to evaluate our routine practice. If a deviation from the norm passes the Everest-Lifeboat Test, I would question the norm. You may just have discovered that you are doing a test or a treatment that you don't believe in. Here is a little list of things that have passed the Everest-Lifeboat Test for me at various times in the past (i.e. I was going to treat, something got in the way of that and I went with the the no treatment option):
I hope that you find the Everest-Lifeboat Test useful at some point. As to whether every child who has had a faint needs an ECG, versus it is good to get one or it is simply not needed unless there is a specific reason - this is a debate that is lacking input from the good people of the primary care and emergency medicine communities. My solution? Stick a cardiologist, a paediatrician, an emergency medicine doctor and a general practitioner in a lifeboat and leave them there till they've sorted it out. I'm fairly sure they'd be fine...
Edward Snelson
Precordiologist
@sailordoctor
Disclaimer: The Everest-Lifeboat Test was originally described in 1055 by Egbert the Uncertain, a monk who died at the Battle of Hastings before writing down his idea. I therefore take full credit for inventing the test myself.
- Kapoor WN, Evaluation and outcome of patients with syncope, Medicine, 1990 May;69(3):160-75.
- NICE guideline "Transient loss of consciousness (‘blackouts’) management in adults and young people"
- Diagnosis and management of syncope, European Society of Cardiology, European Heart Journal (2009) 30, 2631–2671
- Guideline for the Evaluation andManagement of Patients With Syncope, A Report of the American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association Task Force on Clinical Practice Guidelines, and the Heart Rhythm Society
