[How I explore...a gynecologic pathology. Part 1: clinical history and examination]

After major technical advances in obstetrics and gynecology, one can unfortunately observe a decreased quality of the clinical history and gynecological examination, and of usual paraclinical tests. However, outpatient gynecological examination is the main component of a precise diagnosis and of possible medical or surgical treatments. In this article, we review the successive steps of outpatient clinic examination, with emphasis on the important parts of clinical examination. The complementary explorations will be detailed in the second part of this article, in a future issue of the Revue Médicale de Liège. The pathologies will not be exhaustively reviewed in this manuscript; only the diagnostic side of clinical examination will be detailed.