Case Studies

[fuegorama]

What makes a case worthy of publishing? After a couple of rotations down I can think of three patients that had interesting presentations of common pathologies/really bizarre stuff.
But, I'm a third year and basically everything is interesting to me.

So what questions should I ask myself about a case before considering it for a write up?

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[Pox in a box]

What makes a case worthy of publishing? After a couple of rotations down I can think of three patients that had interesting presentations of common pathologies/really bizarre stuff.
But, I'm a third year and basically everything is interesting to me.

So what questions should I ask myself about a case before considering it for a write up?

Can you really do this? Do you have to get an attending's approval? I'd think they would go for it themselves if it were publish-worthy.

 

[fuegorama]

Most of my attendings appear too stinkin' busy keeping their practices hopping to take the time to write.
I would hope to have them on board, even as I did the writing scut. My questions were meant to give me some idea how to wean down possible candidate cases on which I can propose a write up.

The only experience I had with this was when I workede as a nurse in an ED. We had a pretty amazing/enormous mucinous tumor come in with a little tiny lady attached to it. The private practice attending on that evening knew I was applying to med school. He suggested we get some photographs and write it up. His words-"you write this up as a presentation and I'll get it in somewhere."
My acceptance came a few days later and my motivation took a dive.

Guess what...that motivation is back in a pretty big way.

So anybody else?

 

[Adcadet]

Good question. I too am wondering the same thing, as about half my psych patients right now have medical issues that may prove to be pretty rare and interesting. But as you pointed out, just about everything is interesting to us!

Just remember that not every case has to be published in the NEJM. Local conferences like the state American College of Physicians scientific meeting are pretty typical venues for residents and students to present interesting cases, get experience showing off their stuff, and get their scholarly activity documented and onto their CV.

 

[Trader56]

X

 

[Scottish Chap]

What makes a case worthy of publishing? After a couple of rotations down I can think of three patients that had interesting presentations of common pathologies/really bizarre stuff.
But, I'm a third year and basically everything is interesting to me.

So what questions should I ask myself about a case before considering it for a write up?

It has to be very novel to be publishable (uncommon pathology), unless you can put a very unique spin on it. For example, un underlying disorder 'masking' another pathology which, at first glance, appears straight-forward to manage. The more unusual the disease, the better. Alternatively, a laboratory interference in a patient's test result due to some weird pathology or drug the patient is on - again, the management of the patient would usually have to be complicated by the pathology/drug to be worthy of publication. It's always best to do a PUBMED search to see if your case has been reported before. If it has, you'll have little success in publishing it. If it hasn't, you're rolling.

 

[Diamox]

I second Scottish Chap..

 

[Neeja]

Hey all,
I'm also in the middle of MS III and I just got done writing a case report with a resident that I had when I was on medicine. We had an interesting case and just like the OP said, everything was new to me. We searched pubmed, as well as NEJM and ovid, and there are very few studies done on this particular case. You dont need necessarily an attending's ok but you do need to have someone who supervised the case with you; preferably a senior resident if the attending is too busy. If the particular journal you're wishing to submit to requires attendings, then type up the case report with a resident and i'm sure the attending will be MORE than happy to put his/her name on it. Any specific questions, feel free to PM me, but I'm almost as new to this as everyone else... good luck!

 

[Pox in a box]

What is an appropriate psychiatry journal for an interesting child psychiatry case to be submitted?

 

[4424]

What is an appropriate psychiatry journal for an interesting child psychiatry case to be submitted?

when i did my child psych rotation i used the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. i'm not sure how many case studies they do though, sorry. hope that helps

 

[BigRedZippo]

The most important part of any case report is NOVELTY. By novel, it's either a) rare, b) rare, or c) strange. Your kid on child psych who thought he was a barn animal after a trial of psychotropics = not rare. Your kid who thought he was a barn animal and turns out, in fact, to have 30% bovine DNA = rare.

You'll know it's case report worth if your attending says "this'd be great for someone to write up". However if you hear this from one person more than once a month, disregard.

 

[Pox in a box]

Do attendings take the lead author spot on case reports written by students?

 

[qwopty99]

deleted: starting a new thread with this post.