How to play Syndrome
A patient, a presenting complaint and six chances to name the diagnosis. Here is how the workup works, what every finding means and how to solve cases in fewer tries.
Syndrome is Stat!'s diagnosis game. You meet a patient with a single presenting complaint, run your own workup and try to name the hidden disease in six tries or fewer. It rewards the same habit clinicians rely on: ask the question that best separates your possibilities, then commit.
The goal
Name the hidden diagnosis. Your investigations are free and unlimited; only diagnosis attempts count as tries, and you have six.
What you see at the start
Every case opens with a presentation, a one-line summary such as A 58-year-old female presents with fatigue. The complaint is one genuine symptom of the hidden disease, so it is your first clue. On a given day, every player gets the same case and the same presentation.
Below the presentation are four tabs that share one search field:
- Symptoms, standing in for the history: ask whether the patient has a symptom.
- Labs: order blood tests, cultures, urine tests and other laboratory investigations.
- Vitals: check temperature, heart rate, breathing rate, blood pressure, oxygen saturation and weight.
- Imaging: request studies such as X-rays, ultrasound, CT, MRI and echocardiograms.
Pick an item from the list and its result drops into your findings, in the order you asked.
Reading the findings
Each result comes back with a label:
| Finding | What it can show | What it means |
|---|---|---|
| Symptom | Present or Absent | Whether the patient has it. Searching a general symptom such as cough also counts related forms, like a productive cough. |
| Lab | High, Low or Normal | A measured value compared with the normal range |
| Lab (cultures and antibody tests) | Positive or Negative | Whether the organism or antibody was found |
| Lab (urinalysis, blood smear) | Abnormal or Normal | Whether the test shows something wrong |
| Vital | Abnormal or Normal | Whether the measurement is outside the normal range |
| Imaging | Abnormal or Normal | Whether the study shows a problem |
Positive findings are highlighted; absent and normal findings are shown in grey. Do not ignore the grey ones. A symptom that is absent, or a test that is normal, rules diagnoses out just as surely as a positive finding rules them in. Our guide to reading lab results explains why.
Making a diagnosis
When you are ready, type into the Final diagnosis field. It searches disease names and common alternative names, and shows each disease's body system to help you pick the right one.
- A correct diagnosis wins the case. That guess counts as one of your tries.
- A wrong diagnosis is added to your findings, struck through and marked Incorrect, and uses a try.
- Guessing a disease you have already tried simply tells you so; it does not cost anything.
If your sixth diagnosis is wrong, the case is missed and the answer is revealed.
Hints
You get two hints per case. Each hint reveals one finding of the hidden disease that you have not asked about yet: a symptom, a lab with its result, a vital sign, an imaging study or a physical examination sign. Exam signs can only be found through hints, and they are often very specific, so a hint late in a case can be decisive. Hints never cost a try, and revealed findings are shown in amber so you can tell them apart.
After the case
The result screen shows whether you solved the case, your time, the tries and hints you used, and the diagnosis itself with a teaching point and its key symptoms, findings and exam signs. Read it even when you win; it is the fastest way to learn the disease. You can then share your result, which shares your time and tries without giving the diagnosis away, or look back over your board.
Strategy: how to solve cases in fewer tries
Build a short list from the presentation. Before you ask anything, name three to five diseases that could cause the complaint. The presentation alone often narrows things more than you expect: age, sex and the symptom all matter.
Ask discriminating questions. The best question is one where the answer would split your list. If your candidates for breathlessness are heart failure, pneumonia and pulmonary embolism, asking about fever separates pneumonia, while asking about shortness of breath tells you nothing new. Our guide to differential diagnosis covers this idea in depth.
Use all four tabs. A single lab or imaging study can confirm a whole organ system. An abnormal echocardiogram points to the heart; a high lipase points to the pancreas; a positive culture points to infection.
Take investigations freely, but diagnose carefully. Because investigations never cost a try, there is no penalty for asking one more question before you commit. Save your diagnosis attempts for when the findings clearly favor one disease.
Treat a wrong guess as information. A struck-through diagnosis removes that disease, and it often points to a close relative. If a common disease in the right system was wrong, think about what else causes the same findings.
Save hints for when you are stuck. Hints reveal findings you have not found yet, including exam signs you cannot ask about directly. They are most valuable once you have exhausted the obvious questions.
Practice makes it faster
Syndrome is built on the same process as a real clinical workup, which our guide to the clinical workup walks through step by step. A new case arrives every day at midnight, and you can replay past days from the archive.
Stat! and this guide are for education only. They are not medical advice and not a substitute for professional care. If you have a health concern, talk to a qualified clinician.