Thursday, April 28, 2011

April 20

These last couple of days with Chuck has been very intriguing.  I've been exposed to plenty of things, even though I no longer get to see surgeries.  I exchanged the option of seeing for actually learning.[A]  I'm able to take plenty of notes on patient symptoms and various other diseases.   Today we observed a patient who had Barret's esophagus.  In previous blogs I explained what Barret's esophagus is.  However as a reminder it is a disease where the esophageal tissue mutates and mimics the stomach tissue.[D]  The only way to combat this is to keep a close watch on the esophagus and do endoscopies on the patient every 2 years for the rest of his life.  The patient was awfully sad upon hearing the news and did not handle the news well at all.  I was asked to leave the room as Chuck spoke with the patient to calm him down and explain other changes that must occur within the patient's life.  It was unfortunate I could not see how Chuck delivers bad news to patients. [E]

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