Let's face it, I'm not the smartest of them bunch, I think I might the lousiest in my class, struggling to survive medical school. More often than not, I fumble in my exams although I might have read them stuff; and I go blank when I was asked any questions in the class by them professors although I might be all confident answering those asked by my relatives or friends.
So one day during the posting in the paediatrics ICU, there was a adolescent girl who was admitted because she collapsed while she was involved in a camping trip. She was ventilated, and she basically was relying on the ventilator support.
During the working round, the lecturer in charged asked to do an ultrasonography of the liver area after he felt the liver being large, and he confirmed that there was liver enlargement.
After he left, my friends and I asked the medical officer if we could examine the patient briefly, and so we did. I failed to appreciate the liver enlargement, though I have to admit it's sort of being pushed down. But otherwise I failed to appreciate any liver enlargement.
15 minutes passed when the chest physician came in to look at the case. Lecturer said there was liver enlargement, making the chest physician suspicious, as it'd be a very bad pathology to involve the lungs and liver at the same time. So as they continued, I headed over to the other beds to do something else.
A couple of minutes later, my friend came to me and said, the chest physician said there was no liver enlargement. It was actually the lungs, too big that it pushes the liver downwards, making it seemed as though the liver is huge. So, even with ultrasonography, lecturer was actually mistaken!
Oh blimey! I mean, well, everybody makes mistakes once a while. But for a while, I was euphoric. I was actually right for not feeling any liver enlargement! I confirmed it with percussion when I failed to feel in the abdomen for the liver; which was what the chest physician did. And for a while there, I felt so proud of myself. tee-hee!~
Then again, if you're asking me how the patient is doing now, she's actually still sedated, ventilated, and treated as a bad chest infection. God helps her...
5 Jujus:
Now, now....don't you get naughty ideas to go feeling around :P
+Ant+
somehow most of the livers i have palpated have mostly been "pushed down"... only very rarely i have felt real enlarged liver.
its even worse with splenomegaly :S
Will the doctor mistaken part of the 6 packs to be the liver?
wah, so proud to find out you are right while your lecturer made mistake huh??
oohh...can actually feel the liver by pressing into the stomach..I mean abdomen...?
*press* *press* *press*
Makes us feel good to see the pro-people mess up sometimes, hihi.
(I previously commented under the name passerby.)
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