Case Study Presentation

Yeah I know, this entry is kind of backdated. Had the presentation last week but was too busy and sick to write about it. Well, here's the gist of it...

As I've mentioned before, my group had the honour of making the first case presentation for the class. We are now in our Paediarics cycle and are currently assigned to the Paediatrics Cardiac Clinic. Our case study was about a female patient aged around 1++ years old with Tetralogy of Fallot. She was practically bluish due to her heart problems.

TETRALOGY OF FALLOT is a congenital heart defect that consists of 4 anomalies (hence the name -tetra):
1. Ventricular septal defect (VSD)
2. Pulmonary stenosis
3. Right ventricular hypertrophy
4. An aorta that overrides the septal defect

All these anomalies result in a right-to-left shunting of the blood, that leads to the cetral cyanosis. In addition to the cyanosis, she also has clubbing of the fingers and toes (Hippocratic fingers & toes), and poorly developed teeth and poor growth. She was also dyspnoeic during feeding (difficult to breath during drinking/eating), so the mother had to feed her slowly so that she could catch some breath in between swallowing. She could only sit/stand with support because her legs couldn't really support her body. Both the patient and the mother were very cooperative, and according to the mother the patient only cries when she's hungry and sleepy. Other than that, she's fuss free.

Clubbing of fingers and toes

She will be undergoing surgery to correct the defects. And she's also given Amoxycillin as a prophylaxis for endocarditis. Children with heart defects are also prone to get respiratory infections, and that's why she came to the hospital this time because she had pneumonia. She recovered from her pneumonia and was discharged on the day of our presentation while waiting for her surgery next month.

Our presentation was almost doomed from the get go. Apart from being notified last minute about it, we were supposed to present the case last two weeks, but due to unforeseen circumstances (n.b.kes terlupa bawak usb, lol) it was postponed to last week. And out of 9 people in my group only 6 of us were present during the presentation day because 1 was sick, 1 was taking care of someone sick and 1 went MIA. But all in all, it was a success and we really rocked! It was really satisfying to know that you've gone all out and gave your best. What we were happy about is that our supervisor was really proud of us that made it all worth it...

So, next case presentation for us will be after our Paediatrics Surgery cycle starting next week. Saw some really interesting cases recently and Dr.AL had hinted that one of them may be the subject for our case study. Oh well...

The peeps in the my group (minus Mr.MA who's taking this pic, and Mr.OAH who's forever MIA...)

Well, guys, congrats for a job well done and hope we'll rock again next time!

n/b: The patient was also recently diagnosed with an atrial septal defect. Thus she now has a pentalogy heart defect, sigh...