Toshiro Goto, senior medical student
Tokai University
I performed my presentation titled“Cavitary Lung Lesions in a Patient with Positive IGRA and PR3-ANCA are not Always due to TB or GPA: a Case Report of Right-Sided Infective Endocarditis”. It was an honor to receive first place in theKurokawa prize competition, the best abstract award (medical student section) at the annual conference of the ACP Japan Chapter 2018.
I am interested in clinical reasoning, so I often attend case conferences and journal club sat the General Internal Medicine department to read and discuss cases from theNew England Journal of Medicine. A doctor suggested that I write an abstract. However, I was a fourth-year student at that time and had not started my clinical clerkship yet, so I started asking about cases for the abstract. Since I have a passion for studying infectious diseases and rheumatology diseases, I still remember how excited I was when I took this case.
In this case, it was saddening to learn that is under standing of laboratory data led to them is diagnosis of the patient which resulted in anatrogenic exacerbation of the patient’s condition. We must consider bacteremia and infective endocarditis from the history and vital signs, and send a blood culture for examination. If the culture is positive, then we need to perform an echocardiogram. There is no doubt that his quality of life would have been improved with those few non-invasive procedures. A famous Japanese doctor who I respect says that the essence of the physician is the differential diagnosis. You can’t take note of the patient’s history, conduct a physical examination, perform a laboratory examination, and conduct the treatment without a differential diagnosis. So in this case, if infective endocarditis was included in the differential diagnosis in the early stages, we could have avoided such a situation by conducting a blood culture and an ultrasonography. It is said that a lot of unneeded laboratory examinations are performed in Japan. Some people even say “clicking the order button is not the prescription for a doctor’s anxiety to misdiagnosis”, but the lesson I learned from this case is that laboratory examinations sometimes startle us, not knowing the character of the laboratory examination.
In closing, I would like to take this opportunity to express my appreciation to you all. It would be impossible to have this award without your help. I will go forward on my newly set goal, which is to do a presentation at theACP Internal Medicine Meeting 2019 in Philadelphia, PA, USA. Thank you for your time.
