Gastrointestinal bleeding. Diagnosis, differential diagnosis, and treatment

1. Big picture

Gastrointestinal bleeding is an emergency until proven otherwise. In the exam, the key is not to list every cause first, but to show a safe clinical sequence:

Recognize bleeding → assess severity → resuscitate → localize source → perform endoscopy/CT angiography → treat cause → prevent rebleeding.

The examiner wants to hear:

Airway, Breathing, Circulation first. Then: two large-bore IV lines, blood tests, crossmatch, restrictive transfusion, urgent endoscopy or CT angiography depending on suspected source and stability.

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