Prompt: Fracture Follow-Up Clinic Letter

Fracture Follow-Up Clinic Letter

Use this prompt to draft a GP clinic letter after a fracture follow-up appointment. The letter should communicate healing progress, current restrictions, and whether any further orthopaedic review is needed.

Draft a fracture follow-up clinic letter to a GP.

Use these headings: Reason for Attendance, Clinical Assessment, 
Radiological Findings, Current Status, Plan.

Clinical details:
- Patient: aged [[patient_age — e.g. "45"]]
- Fracture: [[fracture — e.g. "distal radius fracture, 
  non-operatively managed in below-elbow cast"]]
- Time since injury: [[timeframe — e.g. "6 weeks"]]
- Clinical assessment: [[clinical_assessment — e.g. 
  "cast removed today, good range of movement beginning 
  to return, mild residual swelling, no neurovascular 
  compromise"]]
- Radiological findings: [[xray_findings — e.g. 
  "X-ray shows good callus formation with satisfactory 
  alignment, healing progressing as expected"]]
- Current restrictions: [[restrictions — e.g. 
  "avoid heavy lifting and contact sport for further 4 weeks"]]
- Plan: [[plan — e.g. "discharged from fracture clinic; 
  self-directed home exercises; return to GP if symptoms 
  worsen; no further orthopaedic follow-up needed"]]

Tone: professional and concise.

Why this works

Fracture clinic letters are often high volume and follow a predictable structure. This prompt produces a complete, professional letter from the key clinical facts without requiring you to write each section from scratch. Specifying whether further orthopaedic follow-up is needed prevents ambiguity that leads to unnecessary re-referrals.

How to tweak it

• For a fracture that is not healing as expected, change the plan to include: "Note to GP that healing is slower than expected. If symptoms worsen or there is no functional improvement by [[date]], please re-refer to orthopaedics."
• For an elderly patient with a fragility fracture, add: "Include a note in the plan that this may represent a fragility fracture, and recommend that the GP consider a fracture risk assessment and bone protection therapy."

Remember: AI is a helpful assistant, not a clinician. You make the call.