Orthopedic Typing Practice

Choosing Orthopedics in the Specialty menu mixes an orthopedic vocabulary pack into the general medical stream. Ortho notes are short and repetitive in structure, and the pack drills the parts that carry the typing: the exam, the fracture description, the op note and the post-op orders.

Open the trainer with the Orthopedics pack

Fracture clinic and consults Op note and orders Exam and special tests

Preset links open the trainer with those settings already applied; you can change them afterward.

What orthopedic notes are made of

Typing in orthopedics is mostly the exam and the plan. A knee visit can include range of motion in degrees, a Lachman grade, a McMurray result and a line on the extensor mechanism before the assessment starts. The neurovascular exam follows set formulas for motor groups, sensory distributions and pulses. Fractures are rarely just "broken": they are described by pattern, displacement, angulation and a classification such as Weber B, Garden or Gartland III.

Op notes run in a steady order from positioning and tourniquet through the approach, reduction and implant sizes to closure and the splint or brace. Post-op orders always state a weight-bearing status, a DVT prophylaxis drug with its duration, and when to come back for films. Laterality is on almost every line, and the shorthand is dense: fx, WBAT, NWB, SILT, NVI, CRPP, ORIF, TKA.

What the orthopedics pack adds

The pack has 1,035 new items and emphasizes about 290 general items, such as existing fracture reads, arthroplasty entries and exam lines. About 540 new note lines cover clinic exams, consults, op notes, post-op progress, orders and discharge:

• Knee range of motion 0 to 125 degrees on the right, 0 to 135 degrees on the left
• Lachman grade 2B with no firm endpoint, pivot shift positive
• Light touch sensation intact in the superficial peroneal, deep peroneal, sural, saphenous, and tibial distributions
• Acetabulum reamed to 53 mm and a 54 mm cup press-fit in 40 degrees of abduction and 20 degrees of anteversion
• Toe-touch weight-bearing on the left lower extremity with crutches
• Continue aspirin 81 mg twice daily to complete 35 days of venous thromboembolism prophylaxis

With Abbreviations on, the third line collapses to SILT SPN/DPN/sural/saphenous/tibial, the way most templates write it. About 110 read lines describe fractures, arthroplasty and hardware films, knee, shoulder and spine MRI, EMG and nerve conduction studies, DEXA and bone tumors, with grading systems such as Kellgren-Lawrence and Goutallier. Dosing strings cover about 60 drugs: perioperative antibiotics, analgesics, muscle relaxants, osteoporosis drugs and VTE prophylaxis.

How to practice

For clinic and consult work, turn on Diseases, Anatomy, Note Phrases and Radiology & Path Findings with Abbreviations on and Cascade. For the exam, pair Symptoms & Signs, Physiology & Labs and Anatomy with Note Phrases and set Term frequency to Even, so rarer special tests and measurements come up as often as common ones. Degrees, strength grades like 5/5 and sizes in mm put steady load on the number row and the slash.

For op notes and orders, add Procedures and both drug chips, set the dosing slider around 40, turn Abbreviations off and use Block, which stops the stream at each error until you fix it. Practice both forms: the toggle switches every pack line between spelled-out and shorthand, and templates differ in which they use. A few minutes on most days is enough, and your progress stays in your browser.