Last Day of Work Experience! :(

I've just had my day of work experience at the surgery today! :( Nooooo! :( The Dr I've been shadowing has written me a lovely reference letter for me to add to my work experience record that I will need for my interview for Nottingham med school.

I'll just give you an overview of some of the more interesting cases that I've seen in my last few days:

1- Patient came in with a BAKERS CYST, which is where the joint capsule of the knee joint can burst out into the space behind a knee, with the patient presenting with a large cyst behind the knee. It may be caused by an injury from playing sport or rheumatoid arthritis.
Treatment was undertaken at the local hospital where the cyst was drained using an ultrasounds guided needle as there are major arteries located behind the knee. A steroid was also injected into the knee to provide relief from swelling.






2- It may seem like a boring one but I have never ever actually seen GOUT in a patient before! This elderly came in with gout of the finger! It was looking very swollen and you were able to see yellow crystals underneath the skin. These were uric acid that had crystallized under the skin are are formed under certain conditions such as heat and dehydration which will effect the way the body metabolizes uric acid.




3- a 43 year old overweight  male came into the surgery because he wanted to get checked over after an incidence he had on Tuesday afternoon. He said he had been walking his dog and he suddenly got really severe heart burn that radiated down his arm and shoulder and into the back of his throat. When the Dr asked him to described the pain he described it as "dull and heavy" and that was was "sweating buckets", the patient also had to take the following day off work because he was exhausted. The episode lasted for 10 minutes and the patient was convinced it was just bad heartburn.
BUT, from the patients history, smoker, obese and with a family history of heart attacks, and the description of the pain, dull, heavy on the chest radiating down his arm chest and shoulder, I thought the patient had suffered a heart attack and not realized.
The patient was sent for an urgent ECG in the next room and his ECG showed an ST ELEVATION, which is where the ST segment of the heart activity is abnormally high and is a sign of a heart attack, the T wave was also inverted, which is a sign that the Bundle of Hiss down the center of the heart has been damaged.
We had to straight away send the patient in an ambulance to hospital for an urgent angiogram to locate and treat the blockage in the heart!
IT WAS SUPER COOL

Image 2 shows a ST elevation
Image 5 shows a T wave depression