Sophie West, a member of the IHDI International Advisory Board from the UK, has recently had her story published in the BMJ (British Medical Journal). While training as a surgeon, Sophie was diagnosed with bilateral developmental dysplasia. This is an account of her experience of the condition and of going from doctor to patient:
Something wrong
I had just been offered a place on the London Deanery core surgical training programme, and was half way through completing my master’s degree in sports and exercise medicine. I was also training for my first triathlon, having completed a duathlon the previous year. One night I woke up with groin pain. After checking myself repeatedly for hernias, I took some painkillers and managed to get back to sleep. The next morning I could hardly walk due to pain in my left hip and so hobbled around for the next couple of days, after which the pain improved and disappeared. I assumed I had pulled a muscle or something. I thought nothing more of it until it happened again about two weeks later, and then again, and again. After the fourth time I realised that something was not right and I got some radiographs done. A professor on my course reviewed the films and immediately told me I had hip dysplasia. Read More…
BMJ (British Medical Journal) — The BMJ is an international peer reviewed medical journal and has a long history being published without interruption since 1840. It’s among the first medical journals to begin using the internet as a means of publication. In 2008 the US Specialist Libraries’ Association named BMJ as one of the 100 most influential journals in medicine and biology of the past 100 years. Learn more about the BMJ…
