Nothing about Me without Me

FLASHBACK SERIES: Blog posts written during my medical school days at Pacific Northwest University - College of Osteopathic Medicine

by Kim Ha Wadsworth, OMS III

Scenario:

An attending physician is doing morning rounds with his health care team comprising of nurses, residents, and students. The group of eight stops in the hallway outside a patient's room to discuss the case. The patient is sleeping, but her family members overhear parts of the team's conversation from inside their room, something about "IV" and "herpes positive." Her family members do not understand what is going on and wonder if the team is saying that she is an IV drug user and that she has a sexually transmitted infection. In reality, the nurse is simply reporting a problem with the IV line during the night which was promptly fixed, and the resident is reading the lab test results that indicate positive for Herpes Simplex Virus 1 (typically causing "cold sores") but negative for HSV2 (common cause of genital herpes).

Out of this Stratosphere

FLASHBACK SERIES: Blog posts written during my medical school days at Pacific Northwest University - College of Osteopathic Medicine

by Kim Ha Wadsworth, OMS III

During my pediatrics rotation, I regularly performed the H&P (history & physical) for well-child visits and presented the encounters to my preceptor as part of my clinical training. One afternoon, I had the pleasure of meeting an amiable, well-spoken teenage girl. As I proceeded with my history taking, I learned that she loved math and science but wasn't sleeping well due to some stress in her life—demands of her classes, a recent breakup with her boyfriend, her younger brother's serious medical illness, and ongoing adjustment to her parents' divorce. We continued with the rest of the H&P, and then I excused myself from the exam room to present the case to Dr. Khurana.