Medscape Features Interesting Cases - A Case Series for Medical Students

This new case series is presented by Robert Centor, MD, the president-elect of the Society of General Internal Medicine, and the author of the popular blog DB's Medical Rants.

A new case is featured every 2 weeks and medical students are invited to discuss and solve several clinical questions. The series is written by Dr. Centor and medical students or residents at the University of Alabama at Birmingham School of Medicine.

At the end of 2004, we launched the website Clinical Cases and Images - An Online Case-based Curriculum of Clinical Medicine, which received more than quarter million page-views last year. Contributors to the website are physicians and residents at the Cleveland Clinic and the Case Western Reserve University-St. Vincent/St. Lukes residency program.

Congratulations to Medscape on starting their project, which just like ours, aims at bridging the gap between theory and practice. There is often a big difference between what we read in the books and what we see in our clinical practice every day. Somehow, the patients are different from their "standard" disease description in the textbooks. An experienced physician used to say: "his CHF did not read the book..." Case descriptions have a great educational value for medical students, residents, and even for practicing physicians.

Image source:
Hampton Hump in Pulmonary Embolism