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Thursday, March 04, 2010

My favourite medical disorder

Medical librarians have to have a familiarity with various medical terms and syndromes. Quite a few of us have a fascination with the myriad types of illnesses to be found in medical science. Here's a link to my own personal favourite, a serious disorder where a parent (usually the mother) will fake or induce illnesses in her child to gain attention for herself. She is usually a model parent, the last person one might expect to harm a child. For more, follow this link:

Munchhausen syndrome by proxy

A danger in being a medical librarian is hypochondria. So many syndromes have fairly common symptoms that it is easy, once you read about it, to feel that it might explain your own problems. I tend to both somatatise my emotions and mildly experience hypochondria (although most of the time I've been right, rather than wrong, on what ails me). Fortunately, Munchhausen by proxy isn't something that is subject to that, really. :)

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