I'm going to miss you VHC

Today is the last day of my rotation in VHC and i just wanted to recap some of the amazing / interesting things i've seen in my 9 weeks there.

1. 5 month old boy with a unilateral necrotic tonsil which developed into a 5mm hole thru which i can see the back of his throat. His diagnosis is still in question.

2. 9 year old boy with suspected Steven-Johnson syndrome: lips erupting into blisters, corneal and penile ulcers but no other maculopapular, vesicular, urticarial lesions or blisters on other areas of the skin. Herpes simplex excluded because he had past history of cold sores.

3. 2 year old girl with Kawasaki's Disease who inflicted cochlear damage to many medical/nursing personel with her high pitched, glass shattering scream. She should consider a career in opera when she grows up. I'm sure if she had any hint of a respiratory illness, some of our medical personel would secretly wish to give her a tracheostomy just to shut her up. I for one, definitely did harbour that sinister thought.

4. 2 month old girl with Pertussis (whooping cough). I witnessed the hack-hack-hack-hack-hack-hack-whooooop cough. People think that Pertussis is really rare in the community and therefore don't want to vaccinate their kids, but the bug (Bordetella pertussis) is still carried around by teenagers and adults, who then pass it on to the poor baby.

5. 6 year old boy with generalised erythematous maculopapular rash that desquamated and peeled off like a sheet from his fingertips, 2 week history of fever, sore throat, myalgia, lethargy and cervical lymphadenopathy. He was treated for Scarlet fever.

6. Adolescent girl with Crohn's disease and a mucocutaneous fistula leaking faeces and pus through the abdominal wall.

7. Cute 4 week old baby girl with anteriorly placed anus who squirted faeces onto our consultant while she was excluding the possibility it was an anovulvular fistula. I was lucky i wasn't standing in the line of fire.

8. 3 year old girl with overflow diarrhoeal incontinence and severe nappy rash weighing up her fear of orange cordial flavoured laxatives versus the irresistability of Maltese.

9. 16 year old girl with Conversion disorder whom we did a neurological + gait examination without taking a history and thought she had a stroke / cerebral palsy / upper motor neuron disease.

Hmm... seems like there's one interesting case each week, in addition to the truck loads of cute healthy babies i get to play with. And as a bonus, our tutors were so nice and lenient that the majority of our group were given high distinctions for our ward and tutorial participations. If only the adult hospitals were as friendly...