Featured in New England Journal of Medicine

[LizzyM]

Case 19-2014 — A 19-Year-Old Woman with Headache, Fever, Stiff Neck, and Mental-Status Changes
Mark P. Gorman, M.D., Sandra P. Rincon, M.D., and Virginia M. Pierce, M.D.

N Engl J Med 2014; 370:2427-2438

And the patient is premed, East Asian and a student in Massachusetts. Reports getting straight As.

Sadly, not a co-author although she did get 2 paragraphs to give her point of view of the case.

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[DokterMom]

How many premeds can claim a publication in the New England Journal of Medicine?

Curious - What'd she have?

 

[LizzyM]

How many premeds can claim a publication in the New England Journal of Medicine?

Curious - What'd she have?

PATHOGICAL DIAGNOSIS
Parainfectious encephalomyelitis associated with systemic mycoplasma infection.

As the mother of a kid about her age, I find it heartbreaking to read, but she's come out of it and sounds very humble and grateful. The last couple paragraphs of the CPC could be the basis for her PS.

 

[DokterMom]

Ouch! Glad she made it through --

 

[gettheleadout]

Mind if we move this out of WAMC?

 

[Pdoc387]

PATHOGICAL DIAGNOSIS
Parainfectious encephalomyelitis associated with systemic mycoplasma infection.

As the mother of a kid about her age, I find it heartbreaking to read, but she's come out of it and sounds very humble and grateful. The last couple paragraphs of the CPC could be the basis for her PS.

You have a heart? Who knew! lol

 

[LizzyM]

Mind if we move this out of WAMC?

Go ahead.

 

[darkjedi]

Hahah, too bad she didn't get an authorship for it. I wonder how kosher it is for the patient in the case-study to be an author on their own article...

 

[gettheleadout]

Go ahead.

Wait did you mean to put it here?

 

[LizzyM]

Hahah, too bad she didn't get an authorship for it. I wonder how kosher it is for the patient in the case-study to be an author on their own article...

Some physicians have done it. Richard Selzer, a surgeon/author from Yale wrote an entire book about his experience as a patient, "Raising the Dead".

Arnold Relman, MD, the former editor of the NEJM who died just a few days ago, wrote in the Feb 6, 2014 issue of the NY Review of Books about a fall in his home and his long and arduous recovery.

This pre-med didn't have much grounds for being an author on this paper as she remembers nothing of the early part of her illness

 

[LizzyM]

Wait did you mean to put it here?

Yeah, I was wondering, what are the chances for a pre-med from a school in Massachusetts who winds up being the topic of a NEJM paper and lives to tell about it.

 

[QofQuimica]

Yeah, I was wondering, what are the chances for a pre-med from a school in Massachusetts who winds up being the topic of a NEJM paper and lives to tell about it.

Infinitely better than the chances of a premed from a school in Massachusetts who winds up being the topic of a NEJM paper and *doesn't* live to tell about it. Ba-dump-bump.

All kidding aside, neat case, especially given the relatively happy ending.

 

[gettheleadout]

Yeah, I was wondering, what are the chances for a pre-med from a school in Massachusetts who winds up being the topic of a NEJM paper and lives to tell about it.

Ah no problem then.

 

[masaraksh]

Yeah, I was wondering, what are the chances for a pre-med from a school in Massachusetts who winds up being the topic of a NEJM paper and lives to tell about it.

Given the number of colleges in MA (I seriously learn about a new college in MA/Boston that I've never heard of before like every two weeks), the huge number of elite hospitals, bio-tech companies, and other institutions, and thus the insane number of pre-meds I am not that amazed by the chances.

 

[Lamel]

Given the number of colleges in MA (I seriously learn about a new college in MA/Boston that I've never heard of before like every two weeks), the huge number of elite hospitals, bio-tech companies, and other institutions, and thus the insane number of pre-meds I am not that amazed by the chances.

From her specific case though, I searched around (wikipedia, so can't really be too sure) and found that the rate of occurrence is 8/1,000,000 people. So that is pretty rare.