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I've just realised I love pre-clerking. I know this is a confession of the magnitude that immediately ostracizes people from civilisation, but there you are.

Today's magical finding has Peutz-Jegher's syndrome, though it doesn't twig for a moment. I'm quietly fascinated by the freckling on her buccal mucosa, but shy just clear of documenting it mentally as telangectasia. My silly reservations; as soon as she has talked about GI polyps, I know exactly what her diagnosis is, and a little skip of the myocardium when she mutters its name a second later. Hurrah!

I didn't ask her explicitly about neurology, but there isn't time for that anyway: I get the rest. Christina assures me that the facial haemangiomas have a larger incidence of intracranial extension with neurology when I go and babble excitedly later to her later. But it's obvious that she's OK from this point of view.

The patient and I natter away happily for a while and I fit my pre-clerking around our conversation. She leaves grinning, smiles happily. And as she does, I look at her delicately marbled lips, her freckled hands and find myself curiously elated that everyone I meet is so touchingly, marvellously unique.