A patient becomes a medical student

I was a four-year-old kid when I was about to begin my first day of school. I was born and raised 20 kilometers away from the big city in a small rural area with minimal essential amenities — for example, schools, roads, and hospitals. Like all other kids, it was a momentous occasion for me to start my first day of school, and I remember how exciting it was. As I started to attend regular classes and enjoyed participating in different sports activity, I began to have shortness of breath with little exertion, cough and recurrent chest infections that only would decrease after taking antibiotics. My father took me to a local doctor who took detail history and examined me. After that, he told my father that he could hear an abnormal heart sound in my chest which may suggest a heart illness requiring further evaluation by a cardiologist. Although I was not able to understand what the doctor told my father, for the first time, I could see him anxious and realized that was a worrisome situation for me. A few days later, my parents brought me to a cardiologist, after traveling for 250 kilometers, in the capital city of Bangladesh. The cardiologist interviewed us, listened to my heart and investigated further. It was a disaster for my parents when the reports came, and doctors said that: “Your son has a hole (VSD) in the heart that needs regular follow-up until it closes off spontaneously or becomes large enough to necessitate fixing it with open heart surgery.” Continue readin...
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - Category: General Medicine Authors: Tags: Education Cardiology Pediatrics Source Type: blogs