Presenting the one-liner
Formal Definition
The opening sentence of an oral patient presentation — a single sentence (sometimes two) that establishes the patient's age, sex, relevant past medical history, the presenting complaint, and an orientation to the active problems; the entry point that frames everything that follows in the H&P or daily presentation and signals to the listener what kind of patient this is.
How It's Used on the Ward
"The one-liner" or "the opener" — the first sentence out of your mouth when you start a presentation; it must contain age, sex, the relevant PMH, and the reason they're here, all in one sentence so the attending can immediately place the patient in a clinical category and mentally prepare for the assessment.
Example
""Mr. Hassan is a 67-year-old man with coronary artery disease, atrial fibrillation on warfarin, prior stroke, and stage 3 CKD who presents with 2 days of progressive dyspnea, lower extremity edema, and 8-pound weight gain, found to have a BNP of 1,840 and a new LBBB on EKG.""
Clinical Context
Format: "[Name] is a [age]-year-old [man/woman] with [relevant PMH] who presents with [chief complaint/relevant clinical context]." Critical: the PMH listed should be clinically relevant to the present problem — pulling in unrelated history (e.g., childhood asthma for a patient with chest pain) wastes time. Common pitfalls: too short ("68M with chest pain" — lacks relevant context), too long (5-line one-liner that's really the HPI), omitting PMH entirely. Surgical services often prefer truncated one-liners emphasizing the operation ("72F s/p laparoscopic colectomy POD#2 with new atrial fibrillation"). Internal medicine attendings usually want fuller context. Match your audience. Once you've built the one-liner, the natural next sentence is usually "Pertinent positives include..." which transitions to the HPI in bulleted form.