Misdiagnosed

 

One very important problem faced by medical students appearing for clinical subject practical exams is history-taking. Starting from the difficulties arising due to misinformation from the patient to the questions asked by extra-observant professors from the points one thoughtlessly writes in the history, there is a really long list of problems. “What should be the chief complaint?” “Do we have to write this point in the history or will this invite unnecessary questions?” These are some of the questions one keeps thinking again and again while frantically writing a clumsy history during exams.

Here again pdfs come to our aid. Clinical case histories written according to exam pattern come in lovely compiled pdfs handed down to us by seniors. Most people rely on them during exams until their mobile phones are discovered and confiscated by professors, who sing contemporary Bengali movie songs part time. While copying from a well-written history seems lucrative, it is also important to remember that every patient has a potentially different story. And this story is already known by your professor sitting at the viva table. So, even if you think that you don’t really know about a point you should not entirely delete it, not considering its relevance, just because it is not present in the pdf. If one thinks that the professor is going to ask weird questions from the history and it is better to stick to a diagnosis you know everything about, they should rest assured that the professor will also get mad if he finds that the history has no points and gives no relevance to the actual diagnosis which keeps the patient in the hospital and lays the entire emphasis on another accompanying diagnosis which is of less importance. And if one lands up with such a history in front of our respected singer professor, they leave the viva room singing his famous composition “Just let me be by myself!” (Translate to Bengali)

On the exam day, as one walks briskly around the department searching for the assigned patient in the assigned wards, one is forced to halt and question one’s vision when suddenly she observes the letters “Antenatal Ward” proudly engraved on the door head leading to a ward which is supposedly for pre-op male patients. And to find this in a department where “Push” and “Pull” posters are stuck on doors and “Do not sit” stickers are stuck on tables, is totally unexpected. But one learns to ignore such mistakes, especially during exams, as one runs into the “Antenatal ward” to ask a patient about his ear perforation history. There again, one gets creeped out as the patient only gives her a crooked smile and a strange look when she asks “What brought you in, Sir?” However, one needs to learn not to be fazed by inappropriate behavior if one needs to take a proper history. So, she simply moves over to the short case, a well-behaved female this time, making a mental note to come back with the whole group to take the long case history.

P.C-Shuvojyoti Rakshit

Then begins the long and tiresome process of collectively trying to write a history where everyone tries to mold the case according to their convenience and every student comes up with a slightly different version of the history. But one must remember that the real art is not just writing the history but actually being able to explain whatever trash you have written, in order to make it sound believable to the all-knowing Almighty sitting in front of us.