High school girl solves her own medical mystery

This is proof of what I'm used to saying to my friends after some experiences and anecdotes from other friends: "Doctors are like mechanics. Some of them are good, some of them not so good, and sometimes you end up doing all the work."

clipped from www.pnwlocalnews.com Eastside Catholic High School senior Jessica Terry studied her own tissue samples as part of her school’s BioMedical course. Katie Regan, Reporter A high school project to study and report on different tissue diseases became a lot more than a quest for a good grade when one student found the answer to a question that had puzzled her doctors for years. Eastside Catholic High School senior Jessica Terry was diagnosed as a child with an indeterminable case of either Crohn's disease or ulcerative colitis, but after hours of studying her own tissue samples, she found the answer; a granuloma, or a mass of cells, that signified Crohn's. "This is something that pathologists had already done for her, had already tested for, and they didn't see it," said Mary Margaret Welch, instructor for Eastside Catholic's BioMedical course. "It's such a remarkable project." Terry's conclusion came from a histology project, which is the study of tissues, and one of the major focuses of the class