Catastrophic diseases of children-the despair, the struggle, the hope for the future
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Date
2023-03-08
Authors
Temiye, E.O.
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Publisher
University of Lagos Press & Bookshop
Abstract
I chose this topic based on my experience with these three conditions, the area in which I have practised as a specialist for the past 24 years. However, I had some encounters with two of the conditions as amedical student. My first clinical posting after the second MBBS examination was in general surgery and the first patient allocated to me was a 25-year-old man who had colectomy for colon cancer. I could not believe this because all along I thought cancers were the diseases of old people and I thought that colon cancer was a rare disease in our environment because we eat a lot of vegetables and don’t usually have constipation. A few days later, while I was still processing this sudden reality in my mind, we were on ward round and a few minutes after leaving his bedside, we were called back because he had started gasping and before I knew it, he was pronounced dead. It was a shock to me because we just spoke to this man a few moments earlier and now he was dead? And died of cancer, a young man? I immediately suffered a psychological distress and developed what is commonly known in medical school as Medical Student’s Syndrome (MSS), a psychological condition in which a medical student starts to manifest symptoms of a disease he/she has seen without actually suffering from the disease. I started exhibiting all the known signs of colon cancer I had read about and started frequenting the general surgery outpatient clinic. Of course, everybody laughed at me. It took me more than three months to get over that trauma.
Description
Inaugural Lecture Series 2023
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Citation
Temiye, E.O. (2023). Catastrophic diseases of children-the despair, the struggle, the hope for the future. An Inaugural Lecture Delivered at the University of Lagos, Akoka, 96p.