Week 6 – being patient....Poornima

My 2nd last week of Summer Immersion took on a pretty different note un-expectedly. The summer immersion ensures that we get an insight into almost every department but for one. And that is the patient side of the story - which turned into my story of the week. I crushed my finger in a door and spent most of my week immersed in ER visits and huge amount of pain killers. This interestingly gave me a new insight into the human body’s sensory process where finger tips and nails top the list. I came to know of the whole process on the ER side and found the nurses here to be really nice. Most of the patients during the day came with mostly minor ailments varying from fever, sprained ankles, fractures and viral fevers.

Later during the week I visited Dr. Schwartz for his clinic visits. This time I had the opportunity of seeing a lot more patients with a wide variety of tumor issues. One patient came in with a rare case of optic glioma. In the CT scans, the glioma appeared to be big round mass very close to the optic chiasm, and stressing on one of the optic nerves. This did cause loss of some sight in one of the eyes of the patient. The issue was that it could not be operated because of its proximity to the optical chiasm and possibility of harming both the eyes. The more focuses Stereotactic radiosurgery was chosen as the mode of treatment here. Another unique case was of a young patient suffering with Craniopharyngioma. It interestingly has calcium deposits found in teeth. Being near the pituitary gland and optic chiasm, it had significantly affected the patient’s eyesight.

I learnt about new diseases and medical terms in a manner that I believe I will never forget. This immersion term is certainly unforgettable. One more week to go!