Moving on

Hi,


A pretty insignificant week, as dermatology wraps up with a session where each student does a presentation on an interesting case they came across this rotation. I chose the patient I talked about before, who had been working in nuclear weapons testing, and had ended up covered in skin cancers. A simple, informal affair, and I got to hear about some of the other interesting things that my colleges had seen in the wards, including a man who had come in because his dog had kept licking behind his ear, and a melanoma had been diagnosed and (hopefully) successfully removed, thus saving his life. Man's best friend indeed! It is assumed that dogs can smell the different compounds given off my malignant tumours, such as altered MHC groups, and 'investigate' them. Several papers have been written about using dogs to diagnose cancer, but they are not as sensitive as other investigative methods.


Other than this, I do very little dermatology this week. This has been a very relaxed rotation indeed, and its a shame that stops now, and I am back having to spend WHOLE DAYS in the hospital at any time. My next rotation is ophthalmology and ENT, and as chance would have it, I am having my own tonsils removed in about a month, due to recurrent tonsillitis, which coincides perfectly with my ENT rotation. I don't just get to watch tonsillectomies, or even assist. I actually get to try one out myself. How is that for a learning experience...


Still, it might be a little strange if I have medical students in on the operation, as they would be my friends from the wards. I'm not going to say no, though, that would just be silly after all the patient's operations I have seen myself.

Very little to report from this week I am afraid, though I hope to have a lot more to tell next week!