Have you solved a puzzling case?

Submit your puzzler!  Have a puzzling ob or gyn case that you'd like to share with fellow readers? We're looking for stories about intriguing diagnoses that have stumped the experts!

The Ob/Gyn Puzzler column features instructive and interesting cases with puzzling or misleading presentations. We invite you, your colleagues, residents, fellows, or faculty members to submit cases for consideration. 

The focus of Ob/Gyn Puzzler is on how the astute clinician gets to a difficult diagnosis. Unusual presentations of common and uncommon conditions presenting with everyday complaints are particularly well-suited to this section. For an example, please visit Puzzler: A Sneaky Case of Hemorrhagic Shock.

Cases should be presented to show the reader the process that the writer used to evaluate the case and to reach a final diagnosis (so the reader is seeing a case through the eyes of the original caregiver). Elements should include:

• Why you decided to order certain tests and not others;

• Peer consultations or rationale for contacting specific specialists;

• Lab values such as vital signs, blood tests, and imaging, whether obtained by the ob/gyn or in the emergency department or other hospital departments such as radiology or neurology;

• Discussion related to the possible diagnoses – include a table with the differential diagnosis based on the presenting complaint(s); and

• Final diagnosis, treatment, prognosis, and follow-up.

The target length for each Ob/Gyn Puzzler is approximately 1,200 words. Longer cases may be considered, depending upon their complexity. References should be cited. It is essential that the disease/disorder described in the case was definitively diagnosed and not determined solely by index of suspicion or on the basis of ruling out other conditions in the differential diagnosis.

Articles should be written in plain language, i.e., as you would discuss the case among your colleagues. Incorporation of clinical pearls and even some humor, if appropriate, will make the cases even more interesting to Contemporary OB/GYN’s readers.

To submit your case, or if you have any questions, please contact Content Director Susan Olmstead atsolmstead@advanstar.com.