Q about writing a case report

[Dr.Surgeon]

I've never done one of these, but my attending and I encountered a case that he claimed to be very unusual and he'd never heard of such thing before etc. Anyways, he wants me to write this thing up but after i've researched the topic, although it is uncommon, I found 2 other cases of exact same thing. So my question is should I still attempt to write it up even though almost exact same case has been published before? Is there any chance of it being published?

Thanks.

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[Medix450]

how recently were they published? has the way they disease/case/whatever been dealt with more effectively, had a different result than the others? Any new implications of the illness? maybe the aetiology is better understood? You should still write it, if its the first case in 40 years, and since only 2 others have been reported its incredibly rare, so give it a shot.

 

[Dr.Surgeon]

Thanks for your reply! One case was from 1970, another one in 2010. Our case was very similar as 2010 and was dealt with the same :-/

 

[Medix450]

well I guess let your supervisor know, and go from there. Since there have only been 3 published cases, its incredibly rare so you may still have a shot!

 

[medstudent7860]

I have a question as well...what about writing a case report about something that is not uncommon but the management was complicated?

 

[Medix450]

if you think you can write a long enough discussion and give clues to why it was complex then id say go ahead

 

[NeuroLAX]

I've never done one of these, but my attending and I encountered a case that he claimed to be very unusual and he'd never heard of such thing before etc. Anyways, he wants me to write this thing up but after i've researched the topic, although it is uncommon, I found 2 other cases of exact same thing. So my question is should I still attempt to write it up even though almost exact same case has been published before? Is there any chance of it being published?

Thanks.

Only 2 other cases in the literature? Yes and yes, depending on the journal. Keep the journals in which the other case reports were published in mind.

 

[Dr.Surgeon]

Awesome, thanks