By Cherie Fathy December 15 at 11:17 AM <\/p>\n
We had just finished our endocrine unit when I noticed a lump in my neck. Perhaps school had made me more vigilant, or perhaps I merely fell into the realm of hypochondriac medical student, but I couldnt ignore this lump. <\/p>\n
I set up an appointment with my doctor, fully expecting a diagnosis of whats sometimes called medical student neuroticism. Instead, she agreed that it was a peculiar lump, and though she believed that it would ultimately prove to be nothing, she was ordering some tests just to be conservative and careful. I approached the tests as an educational experience, something that would make for a good story. <\/p>\n
And then one day as I was studying in the library, I found I was having a hard time focusing on anything but the lump. I felt an overwhelming need to check the results of the ultrasound that had been done, so I shakily typed in my password to access the test results; I scanned the radiologists note until I landed upon the words biopsy recommended. I guess I hadnt realized just how much I had compartmentalized the experience until I read those words over and over again. With my face red from crying (and embarrassment over my public display of emotion), I quickly gathered my things and ran home. Do I tell my father? Do I tell my friends? It could still be nothing. <\/p>\n
I just wanted it to be nothing. <\/p>\n
A patients worst nightmare <\/p>\n
The first two years of medical school, the preclinical years, teach students about disease in the abstract, as testable material. We detach ourselves from reality as we memorize a constellation of symptoms and treatments presented from a podium or a textbook. I have been guilty of occasionally forgetting that what I am studying may be a patients worst nightmare. <\/p>\n
As students on the wards, we see mere snapshots of our patients illnesses. We are there as patients receive a diagnosis in the clinic or a treatment in the hospital. What we dont see is a patient at home deciding whether that lump is even worth checking on or a mother dreading when to tell her children what she has, or how to even begin telling them. <\/p>\n
A full two months after my initial doctors visit, time that was filled with scans and biopsies, I received a phone call that confirmed my worst fear. I had thyroid cancer. The news shattered my sense of invincibility that, as a 20-something, I had taken for granted. <\/p>\n
Almost 63,000 people will be diagnosed with thyroid cancer in 2014, according to the National Cancer Institute. As a student, I had seen its gross pathology, studied its microscopic appearance and even constructed mnemonics to commit the signs of the disease to memory. I quickly learned that the 10-minute lecture we had on thyroid cancer left out quite a bit of detail, and now those details were personal. <\/p>\n
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A medical student develops an illness she has been studying<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By Cherie Fathy December 15 at 11:17 AM We had just finished our endocrine unit when I noticed a lump in my neck. Perhaps school had made me more vigilant, or perhaps I merely fell into the realm of hypochondriac medical student, but I couldnt ignore this lump. I set up an appointment with my doctor, fully expecting a diagnosis of whats sometimes called medical student neuroticism Continue reading