Teen diagnoses her own disease in science class
Posted on June 11, 2009 Comments (4)
Teen diagnoses her own disease in science class
In her Advanced Placement high school science class, she was looking under the microscope at slides of her own intestinal tissue — slides her pathologist had said were completely normal — and spotted an area of inflamed tissue called a granuloma, a clear indication that she had Crohn’s disease.
“It’s weird I had to solve my own medical problem,” Terry told CNN affiliate KOMO in Seattle, Washington. “There were just no answers anywhere. … I was always sick.”
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Crohn’s disease is often misdiagnosed or diagnosed very late, says Dr. Corey Siegel, director of the Inflammatory Bowel Disease Center at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center in Lebanon, New Hampshire. “Granulomas are oftentimes very hard to find and not always even present at all,” Siegel said. “I commend Jessica for her meticulous work.”
Related: High School Student Isolates Microbe that Eats Plastic – Siemens Westinghouse Competition Winners – High School Inventor Teams @ MIT
Categories: Health Care, K-12, Life Science, Science
Tags: Health Care, human health, K-12, k-12 students, science education, teachers
4 Responses to “Teen diagnoses her own disease in science class”
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June 14th, 2009 @ 4:35 am
That’s incredible! Well now she knows she can solve all her problems herself.
June 18th, 2009 @ 12:32 am
Uh, I’m hearing stuff like this all the time lately. Not so much the self diagnosis, but doctors missing stuff which happens to get later discovered by accident. Doesn’t give me a lot of faith in them…
June 18th, 2009 @ 1:40 pm
“she was looking under the microscope at slides of her own intestinal tissue — slides her pathologist had said were completely normal” Absolutely brilliant stuff, Its surprising that an 18 year old at school could have such ability!
June 26th, 2009 @ 10:07 am
I’m happy to hear this!
It’s terrible that she has such a serious disease, but i’m sure it was a load off her back to at least know what was wrong with her.