Indexing title: MJCABAHUG’S MEDICAL ANECDOTAL REPORT (05-10)

MAR Title: A neighbor

Date of Medical Observation: May 2005

Narration:

I had a neighbor who went to our house one time and asked me to see another neighbor of ours who was ashamed to see me.

She accompanied me to our neighbor’s house.  The embarrassed neighbor was a 59-year-old female who has a mass on the right breast.  She lives in a single room house with nothing but essential furnitures.  I’ve learned she had the mass for 3 years now.  The size at first was about 2x2 cms.  At the time of my examination it was already 10x10 cms with no lymph nodes but with ulcerations with foul smelling discharge.  I told her that the mass was benign (phyllodes tumor ulcerating) but needs operation due to the ulceration which could lead to serous infection and will be the cause of her death.

With a happy face, she started crying, telling me that she was thankful to see me and let her know about her condition.  She was brought by our neighbors the next day to a hospital where she was admitted and was operated on.  The operation I’ve learned turned up fine.  Everytime I got to see her at the street would not hesitate to greet me and would give her thanks over and over.

Insights (Discovery, Stimulus, REINFORCEMENT):

Most of our patients need education about their diseases.  It is not enough to know that October is the Breast Cancer awareness Month.  We as doctors have the social responsibility to educate them.  This may be the way that they themselves will be able to dessiminate an information to others that could promote awareness and could lead to prevention of those that are preventable.