The purpose of this chapter is to reassert the value of the clinical history and physical exam when approaching a patient in the allergy and immunology (A/I) clinic. In an era when medical technology is revolutionizing the way medicine is practiced around the world, we intend to highlight the significant input that the essential practice of history taking and physical examination have in the process of evaluating a patient in a A/I setting. Starting with the importance of the chief complaint and the meaning it has in setting the stage of the initial visit and in acting as a sort of guiding compass for the clinician, this chapter goes on to cover the essentials of the clinical history and physical exam approach in patients presenting with several major chief complaints that are seen on a daily basis in the world of A/I. With application ranging from patients presenting with ocular complaints to those with upper and lower respiratory issues, skin complaints, gastrointestinal problems, and recurrent infections, the current chapter intends to provide all the essential guidelines for obtaining a thorough history and discovering important clues on the physical exam so that narrowing the differential diagnosis or arriving at the correct diagnosis becomes a simplified process. The intention of this chapter is to provide the reader with the right tools that will provide confidence in finding out what is happening to the patient and choosing the appropriate complementary test to corroborate the clinician’s thoughts, instead of just relying on technology to be able to correctly diagnose a patient who comes to the A/I clinic.
