MedEx Day 22 - June 15, 2022

Today I shadowed Dr. Absher, a neurologist with the Greenville Memorial Hospital. While I was with him, we saw around 15 different stroke patients (Dr. Absher was with the stroke unit today). The most memorable things that I saw today included a live stroke assessment on a patient who was presenting with possible stroke symptoms. Dr. Absher ran through an assessment of his physical capabilities (lift arms/ press down, lift legs/ press down, etc.), mental capabilities (time, space, orientation, etc.), and live imaging (CT scans & X-rays). Dr. Absher explained that this stroke assessment must be completed quickly due to the fact that clot buster medications have to be administered within 4 hours; however, if the stroke is not ischemic and is hemorrhagic, then that medication could kill a patient.

The other interesting patient I saw was a man who had driven himself to and presented to the ER a week ago with priapism. When I saw him with the doctor, he was completely unresponsive and scored in the coma range on the Glasgow coma scale. It was interesting to hear the doctor and residents express how stumped they were by this case/ hypothesize about the possible cause of the patient's disease. Honestly, it was a bit disheartening to see the limitations of medicine in this way.