is there a website / database for cases of a certain pathology?

[MO_Sawa]

Hi.

I was wondering if there's a website or a database such that I can look for medical cases with a certain disease / pathology with other info (clinical presentation, diagnosis, treatment,etc ), things like microbiological diseases, tumors, immune mediated diseases, and so on.. maybe if i read multiple cases on the same disease it will help memorizing it especially as a medical student getting exposed to most of diseases for the first time ..
for e.g if one searches for "eosinophilic esophagitis", it would display numerous cases in the same disease with different stories, ages, etc.. (hope so you got my point)

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[Redpancreas]

Hi.

I was wondering if there's a website or a database such that I can look for medical cases with a certain disease / pathology with other info (clinical presentation, diagnosis, treatment,etc ), things like microbiological diseases, tumors, immune mediated diseases, and so on.. maybe if i read multiple cases on the same disease it will help memorizing it especially as a medical student getting exposed to most of diseases for the first time ..
for e.g if one searches for "eosinophilic esophagitis", it would display numerous cases in the same disease with different stories, ages, etc.. (hope so you got my point)

I can see why you're asking. Often in real life and on test day the diseases are not as straight forward as in textbooks. That said, there's no good resource that will list permutations of presentations to improve your recognition skills. Your best bet is to just know the illness scripts well. Here are some resources that introduce you to the illness scripts of diseases.

1.) Amazon product
These list typical presentations for the medical student. Reading through them will increase your recognition and break the monotomy of UWorld, etc.

2.) Current Medical Diagnosis and Treatment Flashcards. These are also good for illness scripts but have a lot of information you don't need to know.

3.) Illness scripts These aren't really illness scripts but have a lot of information in one place on one disease.

Honestly the best way to learn these diseases is by doing questions and getting them wrong and realizing you were thrown off by the presentation and now remember to account for that next time.

Regarding eosinophilic esophagitis (EoE), specifically, the disease itself is one that doesn't have a classic/predominant presentation so you're not going to be expected to pick it out by presentation alone. It can present as food getting stuck but also as chest pain/GERD like symptoms. On board exams, if it's the right answer they're obligated to drop hint(s). Think of a young aged male with other ectopic disease (asthma). They may also mention that the patient was treated with PPI for GERD and it did not improve (EoE responds poorly to PPI) and then also look up EoE esophagus EGD and note the ringed appearance on endoscopy. Eosinophils on EGD biopsy is pretty confirmatory. Going into more depth, there are actual criteria per GI organizations including symptoms, biopsy results, excluding other stuff but don't worry about that. Be reassured that EoE is one of the few diseases that has such a variety of presentations. You're not going to be expected to pick it out just by its presentation alone on board exams.

 

[MO_Sawa]

thanks for the advice and the sources you provided. and indeed you're right regarding how diverse EoE presentations are.