President: Dr David Rowen FRCP
A meeting of the Southampton Medical Society was held on the 6th December 2023. The President was in the chair. The minutes of the last meeting were approved.
The President introduced our speakers, the Foott Memorial Bursary winners.
Dr Lottie Mercer who spent elective that focused on rare diseases and the genetics of them.
She said there are more than 7000 rare diseases which have been defined. In the UK there are three and a half million people who have one. The time to final diagnosis is 5.6 years with multiple incorrect diagnoses en route. Interestingly 81% present in childhood and 80% have a gastric origin. She spent the first half of her elective in the genetic lab in Southampton and the second part at Great Ormond Street Hospital in their genetic clinics. The main points she derived were a. diagnosis of these conditions, b. risk assessment and genetic counselling, c. trying to predict the import of the diagnosis for that patient - and for potential offspring,
and d. the difficulties of transition to adult clinical services for these children when they reach 16 to18 years.
She described her experience from this elective and how it has convinced her she would like to pursue a career in genetics and rare diseases. She thanked the Society for their generous bursary.
Dr Feroza Ahmad: She was interested to see how care in Southeast Asia compared to that in the NHS. She arranged to spend half her elective in Bali and half in Malaysia. In Bali the biggest difference between them and the UK is the amount of education pertaining to medical matters. In their medical education classes at school, which had around 14 children, the children were taught about health care which included general matters such as hand washing and how germs are spread. The really important illnesses in Bali are mosquito born diseases and HIV and they were taught how protect themselves form these illnesses.
In Malaysia she attended the Queen Elizabeth Hospital to study dermatology. She is very interested in dermatology and is considering a career in the subject. She found the consultations to be very relaxed and consultants would happily see 2 patients at the same time. She considered that confidentiality isn’t very important there.
She found the experience very educational and considered that the differences between the NHS and what she found in SE Asia were more cultural than clinical. She thanked the Society for the bursary
And lastly Dr Yanika Johnson who decided to spend her whole elective in Jersey as she was born there. She was interested in anaesthetics and ICU care. She said there is one hospital for the whole island which has 200 beds and 7 ICU beds.
There is no formal specialist training in Jersey so she found that the consultants had much more time for her. They were very willing to teach at length and she found that this intense approach was very educational and confirmed her decision to become an anaesthetist.
She also said that there is GP training in Jersey. A consultation with a GP would £50 to £60! She thanked the Society for the bursary.
Our speakers in the end had to present their talks online as there was a train strike on the day of the meeting.
The President thanked them all for their reports and the meeting was closed.