Medical School 2020, Year 2, Week 4

From our anonymous insider…

This week will cover mycology (study of fungi) and parasitology.

Our professor, a 60-year-old ID doctor with thick grey hair, used to go overseas six months of every year to treat rare disease outbreaks, including the 2014’s Ebola outbreak in Sierra Leone. He is celebrating his forty-fifth year of teaching medical students! When he went to medical school, Latin was an admission requirement. This would have been quite helpful in memorizing the 70+ pathogens covered during the previous three weeks as well as in pronouncing medical terminology. Instead of using textbook images for these diseases, he uses pictures of his own patients. During an investigation, he goes to the patient’s house and workplace to investigate potential exposures. One student’s summary: “He’s basically Dr. House!”

Dr. House likes to look at the big picture. “We think history is all about human actions. False. Two-thirds of the cells in our body are bacteria. We are the Uber for bacteria. Genghis Khan was about to conquer all of Europe. His army caught Yersinia pestis in Turkey. The Russians did not stop Napoleon’s army. Napoleon caught dysentery from Shigella outbreaks.” Several students are planning to read Guns, Germs and Steel on his recommendation.

Fungi are dimorphic organisms. At colder temperatures, fungi grow as the familiar mold, creating small inhalable spores. At body temperature, these spores convert into a circular yeast structure. Lectures detailed the three categories of fungi: dermatophytes (fungi that love keratinized tissue such as skin, nails and hair), systemic (fungi that can result in body-wide infections), and opportunistic (fungi that do not cause infections unless the patient is immunocompromised). Only dermatophytes are transmitted from person to person.

This block tends to evoke exotic diagnoses from students. “I’m going to get histoplasmosis [systemic fungal infection]!” exclaimed Straight-Shooter Sally after she removed an unwanted bird’s nest from her potted plants. “As I was throwing it in the trash, the nest broke in half. I inhaled all the bird poop and dust!” After class it is not uncommon to hear, “Do I have a rash on my hand? Do I have syphilis?” One student after class asked Dr. House to inspect his foot. Dr. House had commented, “People who get athlete’s foot just on the nail, not the foot, are more likely to have diabetes.” The student asked, “Do I have diabetes?” Dr. House replied, “You’ll be fine. Remember to never treat your own children. I was convinced my kids had meningitis when their first 103 degree fever occurred.” He ended with a joke: “If athletes get athlete’s foot, what do astronauts get…? Missile toe!”

Parasites are divided into protozoa (microscopic eukaryotic single-celled organisms) and helminths (macroscopic eukaryotic multicellular organisms). With only two days of lecture, we focused on the most common parasites, especially malaria. A common theme of this block is that many symptoms of disease are not caused by the pathogen-killing cells. For example, the watery diarrhea of Clostridium Difficile and Cholera are caused through a toxin-mediated mechanism releasing water into the lumen of the gut. The nonspecific flu-like symptoms of most viruses are not caused by cells dying but the systemic host immune interferon response. Malaria, caused by the protozoa Plasmodium, is an exception to this rule. Plasmodium infects and lyses (ruptures) red blood cells after replicating inside them. Different plasmodium species have different lysing rates giving a classical cyclical fever/anemia pattern ranging from 48 hours to months. Dr. House recounted how as late as the 1920s, syphilis was treated by giving the patient malaria (P. vivax)! The malaria would cause such a high fever it would kill Treponema pallidum. After the syphilis was cured, they would give chloroquinolone to cure the malaria.

We also learned about how the Rockefeller Foundation was founded to address the epidemic of Necator americanus (Hookworm) in the South (see http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/next/nature/how-a-worm-gave-the-south-a-bad-name/). Hookworm is a helminth that latches onto the gut lumen where it produces eggs that pass out in the feces. When a human walks barefoot through a field of fecal-contaminated soil, larvae penetrate into the foot. “Farmers would use human feces to fertilize the field where children would play barefoot.” Once inside, the worm travels through the blood to the lungs, travels up the trachea to the pharynx, and finally is swallowed into the gut. Each hookworm drinks 0.3 mL of blood per day. “The problem is you are not infected with just one hookworm, but thousands. Losing 30 mL of blood per day will cause severe iron-deficiency microcytic anemia.” Over time, this produces lethargy and mental retardation. It is estimated that 40 percent of school-aged children were infected with hookworm in the early 1900s. The Rockefeller Foundation led a massive public campaign that focused on schools to eradicate hookworm from the South.

Dr. House described the waterborne parasite called Cryptosporidium . “Crypto is all through the DC water system. It is resistant to chlorine treatment.” The immune system is normally able to contain the infection. However, some of my AIDS patients before HIV antivirals would have 60 bowel movements a day due to cryptosporidium. These people would live on the toilet, and die from dehydration and malnutrition.” Dr. House couldn’t end lecture without showing us live video, captured during a colonoscopy, of Ascaris (“Giant Roundworm”), which can grow up to a length of more than a foot in the human gut (https://youtu.be/HOaZCkA8Zvk).

Classmates were particularly interested in another waterborne parasite Naegleria fowleri, the “brain-eating amoeba.” Naegleria is found in warm lakes, including in the U.S. It is thought to gain access to the brain through the cribriform plate (thin bone separating the brain from nasal cavities) under barotrauma or a pressurized injection of infected water, e.g., falling during water skiing. I was conversing with a female hematologist in the hallway later than afternoon. She commented, “I will never swim in a lake out of fear of getting Naegleria.”

Our patient case: Grandma Martha, a 68-year-old female accountant with degenerative disk disease in her lower back. Her daughter brought her to the ED for worsening back pain, neck stiffness, and headache over the course of weeks. On physical exam, she showed diminished lower extremity reflexes. Dr. House explained, “Before you can order a lumbar puncture (“LP” or “spinal tap”), you have to rule out increased intracranial pressure which could cause herniation of the brain.” An MRI revealed several inflamed lesions of the meninges without evidence of increased intracranial pressure. LP results showed decreased protein, decreased glucose, and the presence of neutrophils in the CSF. Gram stain on the cerebrospinal fluid was negative (no bacteria observed). “The LP results were suggestive of a bacterial meningitis. However, her presentation did not fit. Bacterial meningitis is typically a very rapid onset of symptoms.” She was started on empiric antibiotics until culture results could be obtained. “I was driving home that evening listening to the news on the radio. They were reporting about an outbreak of contaminated steroids. I turned the car around. Not everything on the news is Fake News.” Several chuckles were heard in the audience.

Back in 2012, Martha had been getting regular epidural steroid injections for back pain. At least one was supplied by the New England Compounding Center (NECC) and, due to a profit-motivated sloppy approach to sterility, had been infected with the fungus Exserohilum rostratum. “We didn’t know how to treat it. No one had ever seen this before.” Dr. House added, “It is extraordinary how quickly the local health departments and the CDC responded. Within 48 hours of the first diagnosis, the CDC was calling patients.” (753 patients were injected with contaminated steroid; 234 developed fungal meningitis and 64 died. See https://www.cdc.gov/hai/outbreaks/meningitis.html.)

Martha was started on an aggressive antifungal regimen including amphotericin (known as “amphoterrible” due to its severe side effects including kidney failure) and voriconazole. “The challenge with fungi and parasites is that our immune system does not do a good job of killing it. Instead, they typically wall off the lesion to contain it. We did not know if our drugs could reach these lesions. We also did not know about the risk of recurrence. How long should we treat the patient?” Martha was in the hospital for 70 days, and continued treatment for another two months. She has fully recovered from the ordeal.

“I was fortunate compared to several other people who live with long term complications from the meningitis. Or who died. I know several people who have dealt with recurrent meningitis episodes,” explained Martha. A student asked about the recent 9-year prison sentence for the NECC co-owner and pharmacist Barry Cadden. “What would you say to him?” “Well, I wouldn’t say anything to him. I would punch him the face,” chuckled Martha. Her daughter jumped in, “I would punch him too.”

I had lunch outside with six classmates. One commented that “Medicine was really the Wild West a few decades ago. Could you imagine discovering these unknown disorders like hookworm?” Straight-Shooter Sally added, “The best part would be getting to name all these symptoms! How badass would it be to name Toxic Megacolon [severe, potentially lethal, distension of the colon that can occur when an antidiarrheal agent is administered during an active C diff infection.]”

Luke got in a heated discussion with Type-A Anita about her two years as an intern at the American Federation of Teachers. She was describing her work “empowering teachers in local communities across the globe.” Luke asked if these teachers were American. Anita responded that they were foreign teachers. Luke asked, “Why should American teachers be forced to pay dues to a union spending money on issues that are not relevant to them?”

Our group then walked over to the hospital’s SimLab, which is led by a retired nurse and EM (emergency medicine) resident. We practiced running a Code Blue where a patient was in cardiac arrest. The main purpose of the simulation was to introduce us to standard communication skills such as “call-backs” (acknowledging an order with a clear read-back) and SBAR (situation, background, assessment, recommendation) hands off. Lanky Luke had run EMS for all of his undergraduate career. The rest of us had no idea what we were doing. The first simulation round we were sent without any guidance to resuscitate a dummy. Over time we got the rhythm of running a code. Two people focus on chest compressions, one person performs breaths, one person runs the monitor and defibrillator, and one person records events. I learned that if you are performing chest compressions correctly you can actually feel a pulse from the compression in the femoral (leg) artery.

What do people who don’t go to medical school do with $300,000 of college education and $300,000 of taxpayer-funded K-12? One of my undergraduate classmates on Facebook this week:

if you’ve been paying attention, you probably know I haven’t been the same since November 9, 2016. things changed not only in this country but also in how I view myself within that context. i joked that if Trump won I would leave the country…

well, now it’s time to follow-through on my promise. after weeks and weeks of trying to figure out what was next, I finally realized that I had no idea and couldn’t figure it out while remaining in my last job and in my last city. so as many of you know, I left DC and my job [social media analyst for advertising agency] …

but now the time has come for me to say goodbye to what used to be my home and is now just the place I try to avoid claiming. i hope to find myself in the coming weeks and months and find what makes me truly happy, in both work and in my personal life.

to that end, I am saying goodbye to the US of A and hello to everywhere else! i do not know where I will end up and although it’s a bit scary, I know I’ll find my way by the grace of a god (and maybe just a little luck)! if you have an iPhone, nothing will change between us. if you don’t, then you’ll have to settle for Facebook Messenger if you’d like to keep in touch (starting tomorrow).

…

au revoir america, it was fun until it wasn’t. for all those I’m leaving behind…fight the good fight, win back Congress and the WH, and maybe then I’ll pay you all a visit in the future (!?)

until then, peace&love…

We had a 2.5-hour lecture from two physicians: “Motivational Interviewing: Eliciting Patients’ Own Arguments for Change”. A 2014 landmark study found that “Behavioral patterns contribute more to premature death than genetic predisposition, environmental exposures and health care errors” (Annals of Internal Medicine, March 18, 2014). The main message is that patients need to feel like they have autonomy. “Don’t give them orders, give them options.” One internist described his patient who had been trying to quit cigarettes for a decade. “He told me, ‘Hey Doc, I am down to five cigarettes a day from a pack-a-day.’ I asked him, ‘What’s stopping you now?’ He responded, ‘If I give up now, my nagging wife will get all the credit.’.”

On Friday, we were assigned our M1 mentees. A social committee of M2s, four women and one man, stalked the M1s for this entire week (online and offline) and concluded by matching the new M1s with M2s. The matches were announced using a “Tinder match” at the annual M1 welcome party, featuring a full keg and a SnapChat Geofilter. The M1s received folders with their mentors” pictures and had to search for them in the house. Only one match was done with romantic hopes: Gigolo Giorgio and a cute sorority girl. Ten percent of the M1 class threw up during the party.

Statistics for the week… Study: 15 hours. Sleep: 6 hours/night; Fun: 1 night. Example fun:

Jane and I unfortunately missed the M1 keg/Tinder party to attend a surprise party for her sister, an advertising executive. Thirty family members crowded into a bar to watch the boyfriend, a pharmaceutical rep, propose marriage. Jane’s sister said yes.

More: http://fifthchance.com/MedicalSchool2020