My name is Derrick Antoniak, and this is my blog about being a first-year medical student.
So, another test in the books, and another week of new dissections before we get our grades back. The written portion of the exam was not very difficult at all, but the lab practical had a lot of tricky pins. My goal, like for the head and neck exam, was to get all the easy points (PBL, living anatomy, radiology, cross sections, and embryology), and I think I was relatively successful in doing so. I'll find out on Friday, as usual, but for now, we're moving on to the fourth and final unit, Pelvis and Lower Limb.
Interestingly, because of the way we develop (as a species that is), part of the male reproductive system was covered in the abdomen unit (namely the testis and associated structures). So, the first two days of this unit had us looking at the entire female reproductive system and what was left of the male (essentially the penis). The area dissected is actually called the perineum, which, if you don't know, is quite an intimate area (I won't describe its borders here, you'll have to look it up). In Body of Work, a book I read over the summer about the author's experience dissecting a cadaver as an M1, she talks about the difficulty she had running the scalpel over such structures as the fingers, and lips, and other uniquely individual structures. She grapples especially with the idea of making the midline incision in the perineum, a cut that would include the clitoris and labia and, in general, skin that is seen and touched in only the most intimate of circumstances. We were spared that dilemma, however, not only by drawing a male cadaver, but also by the fact that the perineum was given as a 'DEMO' (The demo's are basically dissections that are either too difficult or too time-consuming for us students to do, so the instructors dissect, in this case, a male and a female perineal area, and give us about a 30-45 minute demonstration of all the structures revealed). The perineum was similar to the thorax and abdomen in that there are small, hard to distinguish structures all in close proximity to one another, making their identification difficult. Today's dissection, on the other hand, was much more similar to the upper limb, if not easier. We started on the anterior and medial thigh, an area with big, fat, long blood vessels and nerves, huge, easily-separable muscles, and, most importantly, enough room for all four of us to dissect at the same time, which hasn't happened for about six weeks now. So, lab is going good, and we are down to five dissections remaining, so it's really sinking in this week that we'll be out of there soon.
Meanwhile, this week is complicated by the fact that we have our ICE midterm on Friday, so a lot of anatomy study time is being redirected to that right now. Some of my classmates are worried about ICE, but all the M2's I've talked to say they didn't study for it until two or three days prior and it wound up being their highest grade for the semester. In general, I feel very comfortable with my ability to keep up with the curriculum, and I have pretty much stopped worrying about grades.
Joanna is pretty much working from 8AM to 9 or 10PM every day except Sunday, when she 'only' has to work noon to 8, and we both can't wait for election day to come and go. On the other hand, I've been calling the hours I spend walking precincts and delivering signs with Joanna 'extracurricular activities', which they are, and I've put in quite a few hours, and once the election is over I'll actually have to get more involved here on campus. I don't mind that, except most activities and organizations here cost money to join, and, in the words of Sir Mix-a-Lot, "I ain't down with that."
I had my fourth of five preceptor visits to Dr. Roy Monday, and she said she thinks I'm learning a lot. I had a real nice interview with one of her adolescent patients, saw some more ears and noses and throats, gave some flu vaccines, and felt very comfortable overall. I don't go back now until December 16, so I am going to try to fill up some of my free afternoons with shadowing in the ortho clinic and elsewhere. I did a little test on this website called Careers in Medicine over the weekend, and, based on my responses to like 90 questions, they matched me to 'general surgery', so that's another department I may contact this week to try to set up some shadowing.
Anyways, that's enough. I'll put some pictures up next time. This blog is probably getting boring.
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Thursday, October 16, 2008
Unit Three Sucks
My name is Derrick Antoniak, and this is my blog about being a first year medical student.
So Saturday is the big 'thorax and abdomen' test, and, if today's mini-case session was any indication, I have a ways to go. The anatomy seems easier than the head and neck, but for some reason I feel less confident (could have something to do with the fact that I've had exactly 1 dedicated, efficient study session in the entire three weeks). If that's not bad enough, I had to spend almost two hours in Dr. Carver's office yesterday (student counseling) because my backgroung check looks like that of an alcoholic (at least enough so that entering the medical profession will require me to prove that I'm not). We had a really nice conversation, and he said he wasn't too worried about me, but in the end, I had to take a questionnaire, and, pending the results, I may end up in a more formal alcohol dependency assessment or even outpatient treatment (to the tune of several hundred dollars I'm sure). This is a pre-emptive move on my part (at the suggestion of Dr. Hill). I know without question that I am not an alcoholic, and it's been almost 5 and 8 1/2 years since my two run-ins with the law, but when I graduate, if I haven't done anything to prove it, any residency program I enter would probably send me to rehab just based on my backgroung check and family history, so, I guess it's better to get it out of the way now, while I'm really not that busy (at least that's the theory). It is frustrating, though, and, honestly, a little discouraging, especially when you see how some of my classmates act, not only on days like this Saturday after the exam, but also on just any night of the week. Oh well. So, as I make my daunting transition from a one-beer-every-three-weeks guy to a no-drinks-ever guy...
We have the exam Saturday, and, although anatomy is winding down, we have exams much more frequently overall in the near future. This weekend is exam 3, next weekend is ICE midterm, the following weekend is the last anatomy exam, the following weekend is the OSCE (objective structured clinical exam), one weekend off, then the first exam for cellular processes, which is the next class after anatomy. In reality, I don't care. I think it's going to be downhill after anatomy, and, besides that, I've had some success setting up shadowing experiences in departments of interest, and I think that will be my focus, with the hope that I will meet enough people and get enough experience to really decide what specialty I want to be in and pursue it regardless of competitiveness.
So Saturday is the big 'thorax and abdomen' test, and, if today's mini-case session was any indication, I have a ways to go. The anatomy seems easier than the head and neck, but for some reason I feel less confident (could have something to do with the fact that I've had exactly 1 dedicated, efficient study session in the entire three weeks). If that's not bad enough, I had to spend almost two hours in Dr. Carver's office yesterday (student counseling) because my backgroung check looks like that of an alcoholic (at least enough so that entering the medical profession will require me to prove that I'm not). We had a really nice conversation, and he said he wasn't too worried about me, but in the end, I had to take a questionnaire, and, pending the results, I may end up in a more formal alcohol dependency assessment or even outpatient treatment (to the tune of several hundred dollars I'm sure). This is a pre-emptive move on my part (at the suggestion of Dr. Hill). I know without question that I am not an alcoholic, and it's been almost 5 and 8 1/2 years since my two run-ins with the law, but when I graduate, if I haven't done anything to prove it, any residency program I enter would probably send me to rehab just based on my backgroung check and family history, so, I guess it's better to get it out of the way now, while I'm really not that busy (at least that's the theory). It is frustrating, though, and, honestly, a little discouraging, especially when you see how some of my classmates act, not only on days like this Saturday after the exam, but also on just any night of the week. Oh well. So, as I make my daunting transition from a one-beer-every-three-weeks guy to a no-drinks-ever guy...
We have the exam Saturday, and, although anatomy is winding down, we have exams much more frequently overall in the near future. This weekend is exam 3, next weekend is ICE midterm, the following weekend is the last anatomy exam, the following weekend is the OSCE (objective structured clinical exam), one weekend off, then the first exam for cellular processes, which is the next class after anatomy. In reality, I don't care. I think it's going to be downhill after anatomy, and, besides that, I've had some success setting up shadowing experiences in departments of interest, and I think that will be my focus, with the hope that I will meet enough people and get enough experience to really decide what specialty I want to be in and pursue it regardless of competitiveness.
Thursday, October 9, 2008
The student should be able to:
My name is Derrick Antoniak, and this is my blog about being a first-year medical student.
At the beginning of the semester, we all received a huge package of nicely three-hole-punched handouts for lecture, lab, and embryology, intended to save us the hassle and money of printing it ourselves (it's literally two three inch binders worth for the first 10 weeks alone). The lectures are each one hour long, so the handouts for a typical single lecture include about six pages of notes, the end of which will say, "The student should be able to:" followed by a list of anywhere from 8 to 12 ridiculously complex learning objectives, each of which has entire textbooks dedicated solely to that subject. Keeping in mind that we have several lectures a day, I thought that was humerous (maybe you had to be there).
Anyways, we were given a surgical demonstration today by a 'surgical oncologist' named Dr. Are. Oncology, if anyone is actually reading this, is a field of medicine dedicated to cancer, so Dr. Are's field is a surgical sub-specialty dealing with the surgical removal of tumors. For the past few years, they have been trying to give students in the first two years exposure to more and more clinical aspects of medicine, and the surgery demonstrations in the anatomy lab are part of that effort. They demonstrated the exact same operation for last year's class, but apparently today was the first chance they had to demonstrate on a so-called 'lightly-embalmed' cadaver. A few interesting notes on the operation: 1) The light embalming process keeps the cadaver feeling much more human, which was an interesting twist on the dissection process. 2) Dr. Are was pointing out landmarks to look for, talking about how they go about finding things, and making sure they don't injure things they don't want to, etc., and it became immensely obvious how important the work we do in the lab really is. The dissection we did today involved two hours of digging through the abdomen in search of maybe 6 or 7 arteries, which could have seemed like a trivial task, until we watched a practicing surgeon open the abdomen and point out each of those arteries in succession (among others), and talk about how important it is to get this one out of the way before you start cutting, and using that one as a landmark for finding this other structure, etc. It was a really nice re-inforcement of what we're doing in there this semester. 3) The operation demonstrated is called the Whipple procedure for resection of pancreatic cancer. When someone is diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, you have to say to them, there is about a five percent chance you'll live five years. But if that person is lucky enough to live close to (or somehow have access to) a place like UNMC, or Johns Hopkins, or one of several other places around the world that does a lot of these kinds of things, that number goes up anywhere from 15-30%. So, for my part, I thought the demo was real fun to watch and a good learning experience.
The other interesting thing is how often cancer comes up this semester. It seems like in all three units so far, we get cancer over and over. I think it has to do with the way they are trying to teach us anatomy. One of the big keys to clinical anatomy is knowing relationships, not just knowing where a structure is, but what lies anterior, posterior, inferior, superior, lateral, medial, what is the blood supply, what is the nerve supply, etc. So cancer really fits into that learning system pretty well. Cancer and trauma. Test questions are always like, "A man gets stabbed with an ice pick in this really specific location", or "A woman with a tumor in this area of wherever", and then ask some question about their deficits, and we have to know all the structures, muscles, arteries, nerves in that area to be able to answer the question. So with cancer and trauma they seem to be able to ask us like 15 questions in one, and, if I had to put my finger on the biggest difference between undergrad anatomy and anatomy here, that would be it.
In other news, I'm going Monday to shadow a surgeon in the sports medicine clinic, and I am pumped. I don't know what I want to specialize in, but if I had to pick today, based on my interests and background, orthopaedic sports medicine would be it, so we'll see over the next couple of months if that's something I really want to pursue. They said once I come into the clinic and see some patients, if there is an operation they schedule that I find interesting, I can say, "I'd like to be there and see that operation". So we'll see.
At the beginning of the semester, we all received a huge package of nicely three-hole-punched handouts for lecture, lab, and embryology, intended to save us the hassle and money of printing it ourselves (it's literally two three inch binders worth for the first 10 weeks alone). The lectures are each one hour long, so the handouts for a typical single lecture include about six pages of notes, the end of which will say, "The student should be able to:" followed by a list of anywhere from 8 to 12 ridiculously complex learning objectives, each of which has entire textbooks dedicated solely to that subject. Keeping in mind that we have several lectures a day, I thought that was humerous (maybe you had to be there).
Anyways, we were given a surgical demonstration today by a 'surgical oncologist' named Dr. Are. Oncology, if anyone is actually reading this, is a field of medicine dedicated to cancer, so Dr. Are's field is a surgical sub-specialty dealing with the surgical removal of tumors. For the past few years, they have been trying to give students in the first two years exposure to more and more clinical aspects of medicine, and the surgery demonstrations in the anatomy lab are part of that effort. They demonstrated the exact same operation for last year's class, but apparently today was the first chance they had to demonstrate on a so-called 'lightly-embalmed' cadaver. A few interesting notes on the operation: 1) The light embalming process keeps the cadaver feeling much more human, which was an interesting twist on the dissection process. 2) Dr. Are was pointing out landmarks to look for, talking about how they go about finding things, and making sure they don't injure things they don't want to, etc., and it became immensely obvious how important the work we do in the lab really is. The dissection we did today involved two hours of digging through the abdomen in search of maybe 6 or 7 arteries, which could have seemed like a trivial task, until we watched a practicing surgeon open the abdomen and point out each of those arteries in succession (among others), and talk about how important it is to get this one out of the way before you start cutting, and using that one as a landmark for finding this other structure, etc. It was a really nice re-inforcement of what we're doing in there this semester. 3) The operation demonstrated is called the Whipple procedure for resection of pancreatic cancer. When someone is diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, you have to say to them, there is about a five percent chance you'll live five years. But if that person is lucky enough to live close to (or somehow have access to) a place like UNMC, or Johns Hopkins, or one of several other places around the world that does a lot of these kinds of things, that number goes up anywhere from 15-30%. So, for my part, I thought the demo was real fun to watch and a good learning experience.
The other interesting thing is how often cancer comes up this semester. It seems like in all three units so far, we get cancer over and over. I think it has to do with the way they are trying to teach us anatomy. One of the big keys to clinical anatomy is knowing relationships, not just knowing where a structure is, but what lies anterior, posterior, inferior, superior, lateral, medial, what is the blood supply, what is the nerve supply, etc. So cancer really fits into that learning system pretty well. Cancer and trauma. Test questions are always like, "A man gets stabbed with an ice pick in this really specific location", or "A woman with a tumor in this area of wherever", and then ask some question about their deficits, and we have to know all the structures, muscles, arteries, nerves in that area to be able to answer the question. So with cancer and trauma they seem to be able to ask us like 15 questions in one, and, if I had to put my finger on the biggest difference between undergrad anatomy and anatomy here, that would be it.
In other news, I'm going Monday to shadow a surgeon in the sports medicine clinic, and I am pumped. I don't know what I want to specialize in, but if I had to pick today, based on my interests and background, orthopaedic sports medicine would be it, so we'll see over the next couple of months if that's something I really want to pursue. They said once I come into the clinic and see some patients, if there is an operation they schedule that I find interesting, I can say, "I'd like to be there and see that operation". So we'll see.
Monday, October 6, 2008
I Stuck a Needle in Someone Today
My name is Derrick Antoniak, and this is my blog about being a first-year medical student.
So, I'm going to keep these short to try to avoid the long delay between posts, because this really is supposed to be a journal I can look back on, and a lot of the day-to-day from head and neck got lost because I went so long without posting.
Today I had my second preceptor visit in as many weeks. Dr. Roy genuinely (at least seems like she) likes me and wants me to get the most out of her clinic. But today was a test of her patience. I'm not a guy that likes to use phrases like 'emotional rollercoaster', but we certainly had some high and low moments this afternoon. I don't know how, but after the first two or three appointments, the waiting room was full. And she doesn't run her clinic like the hospital, where a nurse brings you back, then a med student comes and talks to you, then you see the doctor for five minutes. She does it all. She calls the kids back, and (with my help) gets the history, performs the physical exam and any other testing, makes the diagnosis, discusses the plan with the parents, writes the prescriptions, and sets up any follow-up. So all of a sudden, we had the entire afternoon's patient roster sitting in the waiting room and it was just the two of us.
Anyways, besides that, I thought I was getting good at looking at the eardrums, but I totally blew that. I looked, saw the membrane, looked at the other side, saw the membrane, told Dr. Roy that it looked normal, which it ultimately did. But when she came behind me to look, she said, "You see the tubes?" "No." "Look here." So, fully expecting to see some microscopic color change or something, I was stunned when I instead saw these massive, blue intertube-looking rings that wound up being in both ears. I was pissed off, to be honest.
But, I kept practicing. We were in a huge hurry, but I kept insisting on looking in each and every ear, and she kept letting me, and she kept teaching me, at all times, discussing the problems in lay terms to mom and in (slightly) more medical terms to me. And, by the end I was feeling a little better. The last appointment was a guy with his three sons all in need of flu shots. I've seen Dr. Roy give plenty, but so far she had only let me give the nasal mist flu vaccine. But today I was promoted from the guy holding the legs down (kids don't like shots, it's by far the worst part of pediatrics so far) to the guy giving the injection. When I finished, Dr. Roy said, "different than chicken, right?", knowing that's what I had practiced on at school, but honestly, other than the insanely loud screaming and crying, the injection felt remarkably similar.
So, I'm going to keep these short to try to avoid the long delay between posts, because this really is supposed to be a journal I can look back on, and a lot of the day-to-day from head and neck got lost because I went so long without posting.
Today I had my second preceptor visit in as many weeks. Dr. Roy genuinely (at least seems like she) likes me and wants me to get the most out of her clinic. But today was a test of her patience. I'm not a guy that likes to use phrases like 'emotional rollercoaster', but we certainly had some high and low moments this afternoon. I don't know how, but after the first two or three appointments, the waiting room was full. And she doesn't run her clinic like the hospital, where a nurse brings you back, then a med student comes and talks to you, then you see the doctor for five minutes. She does it all. She calls the kids back, and (with my help) gets the history, performs the physical exam and any other testing, makes the diagnosis, discusses the plan with the parents, writes the prescriptions, and sets up any follow-up. So all of a sudden, we had the entire afternoon's patient roster sitting in the waiting room and it was just the two of us.
Anyways, besides that, I thought I was getting good at looking at the eardrums, but I totally blew that. I looked, saw the membrane, looked at the other side, saw the membrane, told Dr. Roy that it looked normal, which it ultimately did. But when she came behind me to look, she said, "You see the tubes?" "No." "Look here." So, fully expecting to see some microscopic color change or something, I was stunned when I instead saw these massive, blue intertube-looking rings that wound up being in both ears. I was pissed off, to be honest.
But, I kept practicing. We were in a huge hurry, but I kept insisting on looking in each and every ear, and she kept letting me, and she kept teaching me, at all times, discussing the problems in lay terms to mom and in (slightly) more medical terms to me. And, by the end I was feeling a little better. The last appointment was a guy with his three sons all in need of flu shots. I've seen Dr. Roy give plenty, but so far she had only let me give the nasal mist flu vaccine. But today I was promoted from the guy holding the legs down (kids don't like shots, it's by far the worst part of pediatrics so far) to the guy giving the injection. When I finished, Dr. Roy said, "different than chicken, right?", knowing that's what I had practiced on at school, but honestly, other than the insanely loud screaming and crying, the injection felt remarkably similar.
Friday, October 3, 2008
And the score at halftime, Derrick 2, Med School 0
My name is Derrick Antoniak, and this is my blog about being a first-year medical student.
On Monday morning Dr. Binhammer came into the lab and said something to the effect of, "Welcome to the second half of gross anatomy. I know some of you are behind by a couple of touchdowns, but we have time to make a comeback." So today is Friday, which means we finally know just what that score is. Like after the first exam, I'll just say that I did fine. I won't break down the numbers, but I had almost the exact same percentage score with a slightly lower percentile ranking. So, moving on...
Last night was Kylee's birthday party at the Upstream and then the Crescent Moon, which means that five days into the thorax and abdomen unit, I still have barely done any studying. I didn't feel as bad, though, after we got to the Moon and about 10 of our classmates were already there getting hammered and talking about going back to some frat house to shoot some whiskey. I do have a lot of catching up to do this weekend. Today I took Joanna out to lunch and, despite my best intentions of coming back to the library for the balance of the evening, I wound up going home and taking like a three hour nap. So now it's 6:30, and instead of leaving campus having studied for the past 5 hours, I'm just getting here. And if I'm not far enough behind, I've now spent the last ten minutes writing this.
Anyways, I sent out a couple of emails yesterday trying to shadow this neurologist Dr. Singh, and this orthopedic surgeon Dr. Garvin, both of whom emailed me back and said to set it up with their secretaries and they'd be happy to have me. That's been one of the most impressive things about my med school experience so far. I have contacted faculty members at this medical center in departments all over campus, asking to shadow or participate in research, or whatever reason, and not once has it taken more than a day to respond. And the response is always an enthusiastic "of course I'll help you in any way I can, just call or stop by". And you look at the list of things these people are doing and wonder how they can even check their email that often, let alone send a response or take a student under their wing. So I find that impressive and encouraging.
Yesterday we got to look into each other's eyes with the fundoscope. It's not the easiest thing in the world to do, and it will take much more practice than we were able to get yesterday. But basically, the back of your eye has some interesting things to see that can be useful in diagnosing problems totally unrelated to the eye itself. It's the only place in the body that you can look directly at and actually see the small blood vessels, so often you will have a fundoscopic exam as part of a diabetes diagnosis, for example. The problem is you have to look through the pupil using this magnifying glass/flashlight tool, and, if you know anything about the pupil, it constricts when you point a flashlight at it. So it ends up being like looking through the old-school keyhole, where you can see a tiny window, and if you move your head up, down, left, right, you can move the window around to see different parts of the entire scene back there. The other problem is that the instructor can't exactly see what you are looking at. So, I think I was able to trace the blood vessels backwards and see the optic disc (landmark we were told to look for), but in reality, I'm not sure, and the TA has no way of confirming or denying it for me (he also has no way of denying it if on the exam I say that I see it, but that won't help me much out in the real world).
On Monday morning Dr. Binhammer came into the lab and said something to the effect of, "Welcome to the second half of gross anatomy. I know some of you are behind by a couple of touchdowns, but we have time to make a comeback." So today is Friday, which means we finally know just what that score is. Like after the first exam, I'll just say that I did fine. I won't break down the numbers, but I had almost the exact same percentage score with a slightly lower percentile ranking. So, moving on...
Last night was Kylee's birthday party at the Upstream and then the Crescent Moon, which means that five days into the thorax and abdomen unit, I still have barely done any studying. I didn't feel as bad, though, after we got to the Moon and about 10 of our classmates were already there getting hammered and talking about going back to some frat house to shoot some whiskey. I do have a lot of catching up to do this weekend. Today I took Joanna out to lunch and, despite my best intentions of coming back to the library for the balance of the evening, I wound up going home and taking like a three hour nap. So now it's 6:30, and instead of leaving campus having studied for the past 5 hours, I'm just getting here. And if I'm not far enough behind, I've now spent the last ten minutes writing this.
Anyways, I sent out a couple of emails yesterday trying to shadow this neurologist Dr. Singh, and this orthopedic surgeon Dr. Garvin, both of whom emailed me back and said to set it up with their secretaries and they'd be happy to have me. That's been one of the most impressive things about my med school experience so far. I have contacted faculty members at this medical center in departments all over campus, asking to shadow or participate in research, or whatever reason, and not once has it taken more than a day to respond. And the response is always an enthusiastic "of course I'll help you in any way I can, just call or stop by". And you look at the list of things these people are doing and wonder how they can even check their email that often, let alone send a response or take a student under their wing. So I find that impressive and encouraging.
Yesterday we got to look into each other's eyes with the fundoscope. It's not the easiest thing in the world to do, and it will take much more practice than we were able to get yesterday. But basically, the back of your eye has some interesting things to see that can be useful in diagnosing problems totally unrelated to the eye itself. It's the only place in the body that you can look directly at and actually see the small blood vessels, so often you will have a fundoscopic exam as part of a diabetes diagnosis, for example. The problem is you have to look through the pupil using this magnifying glass/flashlight tool, and, if you know anything about the pupil, it constricts when you point a flashlight at it. So it ends up being like looking through the old-school keyhole, where you can see a tiny window, and if you move your head up, down, left, right, you can move the window around to see different parts of the entire scene back there. The other problem is that the instructor can't exactly see what you are looking at. So, I think I was able to trace the blood vessels backwards and see the optic disc (landmark we were told to look for), but in reality, I'm not sure, and the TA has no way of confirming or denying it for me (he also has no way of denying it if on the exam I say that I see it, but that won't help me much out in the real world).
Wednesday, October 1, 2008
Thorax and Abdomen I
My name is Derrick Antoniak, and this is my blog about being a first-year medical student.
So we're back at it again, and, like after the first exam, we get to work our tails off for a good solid week before finding out our grades from last Saturday. The new unit: thorax and abdomen. Most people don't know what the thorax is, but it's really just the region of the body containing the lungs and heart (and their neighbors, such as ribs, esophagus, etc.). As usual, we wasted no time getting in there. With an autopsy saw, we removed the chest wall, exposing the lungs, which turned out to be the best in the lab. By best, of course, I mean in the worst condition. There is a disease most people have heard of called emphysema, characterized by enlarged air sacs on the lungs. Bootstrap's lungs were covered with golf-ball-sized air sacs that had Binhammer sending the whole lab over for a look.
The next logical step after you remove a man's lungs is to expose and remove his heart. Being logical people, we did just that. So far this semester I've been sort of a dissection hog, which no one really minded when it came to things like cutting down the middle of the face and chiseling through the top of the skull to get to the eyeball. But as it turns out, Kylee's favorite organ is the heart, and because she wanted to so badly, and because it's her birthday tomorrow, Tony and I of course had no problem letting her be the one to single-handedly remove the heart from the body. We spent most of yesterday and today looking at structures on the surface of the heart, and then cut it open today to look at structures inside. So far, we all feel lost, which has been the case for the first few days of both previous units.
Meanwhile, I'm thinking of applying for this thing called an Enhanced Medical Education Track (EMET). It's a new program where students can do things above and beyond the curriculum and get that recognition at graduation. I am looking at the auto-immune disorders track, and I am relatively certain I will apply for it. It requires about 440 hours in the first year, and about 160 in the second, but a lot of the time spent will be doing things that I plan on doing anyways. There is an opportunity for summer research, which I would have applied for anyways, shadowing, which I would have done anyways, and the research you do can be used for an honors thesis in the fourth year, which I would have tried to do anyways. It's competitive, as they will only take three students, but I met with Dr. Thiele today, and think I've decided to pursue it.
Anyways, Joanna's mom's birthday is today, so I need to get to studying so I can go have some cake and ice cream.
So we're back at it again, and, like after the first exam, we get to work our tails off for a good solid week before finding out our grades from last Saturday. The new unit: thorax and abdomen. Most people don't know what the thorax is, but it's really just the region of the body containing the lungs and heart (and their neighbors, such as ribs, esophagus, etc.). As usual, we wasted no time getting in there. With an autopsy saw, we removed the chest wall, exposing the lungs, which turned out to be the best in the lab. By best, of course, I mean in the worst condition. There is a disease most people have heard of called emphysema, characterized by enlarged air sacs on the lungs. Bootstrap's lungs were covered with golf-ball-sized air sacs that had Binhammer sending the whole lab over for a look.
The next logical step after you remove a man's lungs is to expose and remove his heart. Being logical people, we did just that. So far this semester I've been sort of a dissection hog, which no one really minded when it came to things like cutting down the middle of the face and chiseling through the top of the skull to get to the eyeball. But as it turns out, Kylee's favorite organ is the heart, and because she wanted to so badly, and because it's her birthday tomorrow, Tony and I of course had no problem letting her be the one to single-handedly remove the heart from the body. We spent most of yesterday and today looking at structures on the surface of the heart, and then cut it open today to look at structures inside. So far, we all feel lost, which has been the case for the first few days of both previous units.
Meanwhile, I'm thinking of applying for this thing called an Enhanced Medical Education Track (EMET). It's a new program where students can do things above and beyond the curriculum and get that recognition at graduation. I am looking at the auto-immune disorders track, and I am relatively certain I will apply for it. It requires about 440 hours in the first year, and about 160 in the second, but a lot of the time spent will be doing things that I plan on doing anyways. There is an opportunity for summer research, which I would have applied for anyways, shadowing, which I would have done anyways, and the research you do can be used for an honors thesis in the fourth year, which I would have tried to do anyways. It's competitive, as they will only take three students, but I met with Dr. Thiele today, and think I've decided to pursue it.
Anyways, Joanna's mom's birthday is today, so I need to get to studying so I can go have some cake and ice cream.
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