Clinical Case Reports: Why should health professionals care about them?

Abstract

I was born and raised in a medical family surrounded by physicians of various specialities and their friends. Although I dreamed of becoming a conductor of a symphony orchestra, my destiny was quite predetermined (genetically as well as epigenetically). So, I became a cardiologist. Right at the beginning of my career at the university hospital, I was told by senior physicians that to become a good medical professional you must read one clinical case report per day, at least. Indeed, it is not easy to see diverse patients every day and keep reading the medical literature. Eventually, I realized that following this rule I could easily come up with an initial diagnosis and selection of the right therapy for my patients. Clearly, clinical case reports remain an essential part of lifelong learning in medicine, contributing greatly to the progress of health care. That is why ScienceOpen aggregated extensive content from the medical literature published Open Access in the last 5-7 years and offers this invaluable material freely for every health care professional in the world. Another important aspect of continuing medical education involves the role of mentoring. Mentorship during the medical career can have an exceptional impact both professionally as well as personally. Supporting self-esteem and the importance of lifelong learning, a good mentor empowers a positive attitude and promotes the development of more open and flexible mindsets in medical trainees. As a great example, I would like to mention a weekly clinical case reports discussion called clinical journal club presented by Professor Friedrich C. Luft, Director of the Experimental and Clinical Research Center (ECRC) at Charité and Max Delbrück Center in the Helmholtz Association in Berlin to his colleagues, physicians and researchers in a freely available open format: http://www.charite-buch.de/. During my own training as a physician-scientist, I met a few outstanding senior colleagues, unique leaders and incredible personalities such as Professor Mirsaid M. Mirrakhimov, Professor Rainer Dietz, Professor Detlev Ganten, and Professor Friedrich C. Luft. Now, Professor Friedrich C. Luft and I decided to initiate a special Open Access collection of clinical case reports across all medical disciplines. Friedrich Luft has expressed his thoughts and ideas on the Clinical Case Reports Collection in this short video: https://youtu.be/XKKxxlPuUwM So, why should clinical case reports be published? Here are the top 4 reasons to publish clinical case reports Open Access: Everyone can learn about interesting and unique disease manifestations and diagnostic methods, Everyone can get an invaluable first-hand source of evidence about general and novel therapeutic approaches across the globe, It helps to discover life threatening adverse reactions to medications, Used in practice to exchange information and generate a more expanded search for evidence We hereby would like to encourage every medical doctor, nurse and health care professional to share their clinical knowledge and discuss openly and cross-border their thoughts to generate new research and hypotheses. This becomes even more important with the rise of the Open Access movement and has an invaluable role in disseminating knowledge. So, welcome to the clinical case reports collection and unlock your education, doc!