Student Diagnoses Own Disease in Class
June 12, 2009 by Cherie Burbach
Filed under Women's Health
How many times do we hear about a doctor who doesn’t listen to us? Or one that doesn’t take the time to figure out what’s really wrong when we tell them our health concerns. I suppose sometimes doctors become immune to hearing patients complain.
Well Jessica Terry, an 18-year old student from Washington was in her Advanced Placement high school science class and looking at her own tissue slides. Terry had been suffering from terrible stomach pain that “brought her to her knees. The pain, along with diarrhea, vomiting and fever, made her so sick, she lost weight and often had to miss school.”
She took the same tissue that her doctor said was perfectly normal, and examined it under the microscope. She saw “an area of inflamed tissue” which she sent to her doctor, and has now been diagnosed as Crohn’s disease.
The kid found her own disease. The one her doctor’s couldn’t find.
Pretty amazing. Terry will be going to nursing school in fall, and she’s also written a children’s book about Crohn’s disease.
Image: sxc.hu.
