Liepāja Doctor in Sweden Proves: Our Patient Diagnoses Are as Complex as Hockey Rules

Medical world sensation! Liepāja Regional Hospital otolaryngologist Marta Lapiņa has returned from the European Otolaryngologists Congress in Sweden, where she represented our city with a clinical case more complex than Liepāja ice rink's ventilation system during winter months. While Riga doctors are still trying to figure out how to write diagnoses without errors, ours are already presenting patients with so many diagnoses that even the congress committee was forced to approve the presentation.

"I submitted our clinical case, and it was approved by the congress leadership," says Marta Lapiņa, obviously proud that her patient's diagnosis "Treatment of a complex 57-year-old patient with diabetes, atrial fibrillation, dyslipidemia, obesity, hypertension and acute neck infection" sounded almost like our city residents' daily story. Local pensioner Jānis comments: "Well, that's a normal Liepāja resident's diagnosis. I also have rheumatism on top of that, but nobody talks about that at congresses."

Particularly interesting that congress participants took part in a charity run through Gothenburg streets at six in the morning. That's almost as extreme as running down our Graudu Street in winter, just without ice and with better lighting. Marta Lapiņa admits there was a great feeling at the finish line, presumably similar to what hockey players feel after a game at the ice rink — both exhaustion and satisfaction.

Returning to Liepāja, the doctor is satisfied with the opportunity to "carry the hospital's name into the world." While Riga clinics are still debating whether to introduce new technologies, Liepāja medics are already proving that with existing equipment they can treat patients so complexly that it's worth talking about across Europe. As local nurse Ilze says: "We don't need expensive equipment — we have experience with Liepāja wind and patients who survive everything."