another patient

as usual, patients teach us a lot. today i have two patients we shall discuss~

one of my patients presented with symptoms suggestive of acute limb ischeamia. he had a sudden episode of throbbing calf pain and he had all the risk factors: IHD, COPD, Hyperlipidemia and when i examined him, his leg was already cold and mottled his posterior tibialis and dorsalis pedis pulses were not palpable anymore.is leg had to be amputated above the knee because the doppler ultrasound revealed a non-viable limb. what touched my heart is the fact that this patient already presented to the ED twice and was misdiagnosed as cellulitis. he was discharged and now, he had to amputate his leg. whilst he was telling me this story, he blinked back tears which made me sad as well. he told me, do not make the same mistake later when i become a doctor.

another patient today was a known case of hepatoma. i didn't get much of the history bt on examination there was a huge mass arising from the liver measuring 19x26 cm ( i wouldn't be suprised if he' called for our exam ). he let each and everyone of us to examine him, there were 8 of us including prof i think.

the lesson i learnt the most is that patients help us A LOT. the first patient gave me a painful reminder thar misdiagnosing a patient can cost him his leg. the second patient reminded me to be nice, such as this pakcik was. he knew there was not much can be done and still found the will to live and help us medical students acquire the experience.

goes to show that these patients were old, helpless and in pain. while we are just too tired,lazy or give excuses when we have work to do and this might cost us a life. alhough we still are medical students, we should do our work diligently at least starting from now coz old habits die hard and we don't want to do anything wrong when we start working. lastly, the problems that we think might be so big, are absolutely minuscule to what our patients might be experiencing. so don't make a big deal out of it. deal with it. do not say "this is who i am, i get moody/irriatated/merajok/bothered/annoyed by a small mistake". only you have the power to change who you are.