Everyday Medical Consult

Last night Stacey called me to ask for some medical advice on behalf of her friend. Her friend had been experiencing sudden sharp pain down her left arm and forearm, and her fingers started to go numb. She thought she was having a heart attack, so she went to the ER, where they did an EKG which showed normal heart function (and so her pain wasn't due to an MI). They also did CT scans axilla through her neck, but instead of explaining the results of the test, they gave them to her written on a piece of paper. She was calling me to ask for help in deciphering what it was that the piece of paper said.

The CT scan reported that she had soft-tissue swelling posterior to her left sternocleidomastoid muscle along with an enlarged lymph node (8mm) in her neck. They also reported that the pain might have been caused from a pinched nerve. The numbness had been in all her fingers, so that led me to believe that the source of the pinched nerve was proximal to the brachial plexus (and not somewhere along the radial, median, or ulnar nerves), and so swelling in the neck around the area of the C5 to C8 rami seemed like a plausible cause for her pain. I told her that she didn't have to worry too much about the enlarged lymph node (even though the node is roughly double in size, lymph nodes can get enlarged from many things), but that nerve problems don't tend to go away on their own, and that if the pinched nerve wasn't treated it could potentially get worse. I suggested that she go see a neurologist to determine the location of her nerve damage.

The interesting thing about this is twofold: first, that Stacey thought to call me to ask about this medical problem, especially since I've only been in school for some 3 months. And secondly, because of my Anatomy lectures and dissections in the past week, I was able to give a half-way decent response to her questions. I guess there is no better example of the direct usefulness of Anatomy and the medical education in general that this little anecdote. I came away from the conversation with a great deal of satisfaction that what I am doing is actually important. Of course I am not a doctor yet, nor did I presume to be when I was talking to Stacey's friend, but it was greatly satisfying to know something about what she was asking about.