Wednesday, August 26, 2009
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
Anatomy Professor Advice for the first exam...
And this leads to three other pieces of advice:
1. Take the questions as simple and direct. I am not trying to trick you. I do not need to. This stuff is hard enough without making life more difficult by making it tricky.
2. Once you answer it as a simple question, resist the temptation to change answers unless you have a sudden brainstorm and realized your answer was stupid. If your thinking is "if you think about it this way, maybe this other answer could be correct..." than you are changing a right answer to a wrong one.
3. Be awake for the exam. Get a good night's sleep, and take it easy the day of the exam. If you are half asleep while taking this exam, then you're going to thwart all of your hard work.
1. Take the questions as simple and direct. I am not trying to trick you. I do not need to. This stuff is hard enough without making life more difficult by making it tricky.
2. Once you answer it as a simple question, resist the temptation to change answers unless you have a sudden brainstorm and realized your answer was stupid. If your thinking is "if you think about it this way, maybe this other answer could be correct..." than you are changing a right answer to a wrong one.
3. Be awake for the exam. Get a good night's sleep, and take it easy the day of the exam. If you are half asleep while taking this exam, then you're going to thwart all of your hard work.
Sunday, August 23, 2009
So, what brought you into the clinic today?...
Last Thursday was the longest day of school yet. I got to the anatomy lab at 8 to find out that the schedule was changed and the day started at 9. So, I went right to work and starting dissecting to redeem myself for being late earlier in the week. Unfortunately, the beginning of this dissection required that I take a saw and literally take out her (we have not named her) clavical bone. So, with help from a friend, I did it…making sure to not cut anything else important that we had worked on previously. Going through bone is a lot tougher then I thought, makes me appreciate how much effort it takes to break one during sports, or just falling (like I have done several times in the past). I felt particularly sick after lab this day, most likely because I was inhaling the fumes for about 3 hours, no bueno. I changed into my ‘professional’ clothes after lab then had lecture, ate lunch, and then went to the ‘clinic’ to have my first simulated patient encounters. I then had the most mentally draining afternoon and I wasn’t even studying anatomy, it was from all the effort it took to speak with people…
Our course is called Essentials of Clinical Medicine (ECM) and it is every Thursday afternoon. This is when we learn clinical skills like taking patient histories and how to use our equipment. This is the course I will learn how to draw blood in. Anyways, this particular Thursday was as I said, our first simulated patient encounters. Basically, actors that are paid to pretend like the are patients in a VERY wide range of circumstances. And boy are they good!!! They broke us into groups of 6 and we sat in a clinic room. The ‘patients’ would rotate around each clinic room and each time a new patient came, one of the 6 of us would act as though we were they’re doctors seeing them for the first time. We were to practice building rapport with them. Some people came in pretending to be shy, nervous, mad they had to wait so long, and one old lady was just crying the whole time. It was intense!! The two patients I talked with were a young girl that was shy and an older lady that was lonely and basically just came in to have social contact with someone. The encounter lasted 5 minutes and then the actors were given 3 minutes after to give us feedback on how we did. The best part about it is during the 5 min you are allowed to take a ‘time out’ to ask the actor or your peers for help on what to do, or say next if you are stuck. And yes, I did take a time out for my first one because I had no idea what I was doing. The second lady was very easy to talk to and I think I improved a lot by that one.
Anywho, that was Thursday and I am glad it is over. Friday was a shorter day and after class a couple of us went to play pool and relax for a bit (they are plenty of bars right by school, very convenient!). Then I went home and studied for a while. This weekend was fun, I finally got to see old friends and also did a lot of studying on Saturday so it was productive. Today (Sunday) I went to lab in the morning and then slept all afternoon. GLORIOUS. OK, back to the grinding board. Test in 5 days!!!!
Our course is called Essentials of Clinical Medicine (ECM) and it is every Thursday afternoon. This is when we learn clinical skills like taking patient histories and how to use our equipment. This is the course I will learn how to draw blood in. Anyways, this particular Thursday was as I said, our first simulated patient encounters. Basically, actors that are paid to pretend like the are patients in a VERY wide range of circumstances. And boy are they good!!! They broke us into groups of 6 and we sat in a clinic room. The ‘patients’ would rotate around each clinic room and each time a new patient came, one of the 6 of us would act as though we were they’re doctors seeing them for the first time. We were to practice building rapport with them. Some people came in pretending to be shy, nervous, mad they had to wait so long, and one old lady was just crying the whole time. It was intense!! The two patients I talked with were a young girl that was shy and an older lady that was lonely and basically just came in to have social contact with someone. The encounter lasted 5 minutes and then the actors were given 3 minutes after to give us feedback on how we did. The best part about it is during the 5 min you are allowed to take a ‘time out’ to ask the actor or your peers for help on what to do, or say next if you are stuck. And yes, I did take a time out for my first one because I had no idea what I was doing. The second lady was very easy to talk to and I think I improved a lot by that one.
Anywho, that was Thursday and I am glad it is over. Friday was a shorter day and after class a couple of us went to play pool and relax for a bit (they are plenty of bars right by school, very convenient!). Then I went home and studied for a while. This weekend was fun, I finally got to see old friends and also did a lot of studying on Saturday so it was productive. Today (Sunday) I went to lab in the morning and then slept all afternoon. GLORIOUS. OK, back to the grinding board. Test in 5 days!!!!
First full week of anatomy down, lots more to go
Written on Wednesday August 19, 2009 somewhere between dinner and bed time…
I am officially overwhelmed. Getting a passing grade in medical school is a LOT different then getting A’s in undergrad. I have taken anatomy before but that course was apparently just a small 1/34590 tip of the iceberg compared to the material I am learning now. We have lab every morning and lecture in the afternoons and I am sure I smell all day. I came home today and the cat was smelling me for a while, he then ran away. This could be because he really doesn’t like me (im never home) or I smelled like preservatives. Either way it was sad. I need to slow down and just take one lecture at a time, one day at a time, one hour of studying at a time. Our first exam is a week from Friday (Aug 28th) so it looks like this weekend is going to be a fun filled time spent in the lab with our deceased friends and books. SWEEEEET. Don’t get me wrong, im not complaining. Just wishing I could absorb this information faster….
So far in lab this week we have chiseled out the vertebrae of our cadaver, revealed the spinal chord, skinned the arms, revealed A LOT of arteries, veins and nerves, and given a mastectomy (removed the breasts) to expose the anterior muscles. Tomorrow I will be using a saw to cut out the clavicle to expose the vasculature underneath. To many details?…..sorry ☺ All have been very cool, though they may sound gruesome, it is the absolute best way to learn anatomy. I learn soooo much more in lab then I do sitting in front of powerpoints and lecture notes.
Our first simulated patient encounters for Essentials of Clinical Medicine are tomorrow afternoon. We are doing patient ‘drills’ in groups of 6. Each group sees 12 patients and each person gets to ‘meet’ with 2 people in a span of 2 hours. We obviously are incompetent in the medical aspect and couldn’t diagnose a headache from a seizure, but they are starting us out early to begin working on our communication. My fear is that they will smell all of us walking into the room and immediately vomit….hence no communication. Then what? At least I get to wear my white coat and stethoscope around my neck (even though Im not really sure how to use it effectively)!
To note, in lecture yesterday my anatomy professor said this during lecture:
rub your hands together, what do you feel? heat or friction. well they put bursa's into joints like the glenohumoral joint to reduce this friction.
Made me wonder who is this ‘they’ he refers to? Haha
I am officially overwhelmed. Getting a passing grade in medical school is a LOT different then getting A’s in undergrad. I have taken anatomy before but that course was apparently just a small 1/34590 tip of the iceberg compared to the material I am learning now. We have lab every morning and lecture in the afternoons and I am sure I smell all day. I came home today and the cat was smelling me for a while, he then ran away. This could be because he really doesn’t like me (im never home) or I smelled like preservatives. Either way it was sad. I need to slow down and just take one lecture at a time, one day at a time, one hour of studying at a time. Our first exam is a week from Friday (Aug 28th) so it looks like this weekend is going to be a fun filled time spent in the lab with our deceased friends and books. SWEEEEET. Don’t get me wrong, im not complaining. Just wishing I could absorb this information faster….
So far in lab this week we have chiseled out the vertebrae of our cadaver, revealed the spinal chord, skinned the arms, revealed A LOT of arteries, veins and nerves, and given a mastectomy (removed the breasts) to expose the anterior muscles. Tomorrow I will be using a saw to cut out the clavicle to expose the vasculature underneath. To many details?…..sorry ☺ All have been very cool, though they may sound gruesome, it is the absolute best way to learn anatomy. I learn soooo much more in lab then I do sitting in front of powerpoints and lecture notes.
Our first simulated patient encounters for Essentials of Clinical Medicine are tomorrow afternoon. We are doing patient ‘drills’ in groups of 6. Each group sees 12 patients and each person gets to ‘meet’ with 2 people in a span of 2 hours. We obviously are incompetent in the medical aspect and couldn’t diagnose a headache from a seizure, but they are starting us out early to begin working on our communication. My fear is that they will smell all of us walking into the room and immediately vomit….hence no communication. Then what? At least I get to wear my white coat and stethoscope around my neck (even though Im not really sure how to use it effectively)!
To note, in lecture yesterday my anatomy professor said this during lecture:
rub your hands together, what do you feel? heat or friction. well they put bursa's into joints like the glenohumoral joint to reduce this friction.
Made me wonder who is this ‘they’ he refers to? Haha
Saturday, August 15, 2009
FIRST DISSECTION!!
(I wrote this on Thursday August 13th)
So today was my first day dissecting our cadaver and it wasnt as bad as i thought it would be Let me start off by saying i have found out that i love to cut! Anyways, Group A had already dissected the superficial (outtermost) muscles of the back and we dissected the deeper muscles around the spine. I was totally fine until about 9:30 (we started at 8) when we started dissecting the base of the neck and skull. We had to cut the skull and pull back the skin (with hair on it and all) and at that point i decided to step out and get some air. It was the sight and smell that made me get hot all of a sudden, in the beginning i forced myself to not think about the person but seeing her hair made it very very real. Yesterday in lecture our professor told us that whenever we need to, we should go outside for about 5 minutes until we feel better and then stay outside another 5 after that. With formaldehyde its a pretty intense smell so leaning over the body for 3 hours at a time is not exactly comfortable, not to mention very bad for us. For example, i cant wear contacts because the formaldehyde will start to stick to them and thats no bueno.
On a good note, i have decided to run for vice president of our class and will know on Aug 20th if i won the position or not. There are 4 or 5 other people running so we'll see what happens!
Tonight is gonna be a fun night of going to dinner with friends and studying. we will see how much studying actually gets done :)
i dissection down, a LOT more smelly ones to go!!!
:)
So today was my first day dissecting our cadaver and it wasnt as bad as i thought it would be Let me start off by saying i have found out that i love to cut! Anyways, Group A had already dissected the superficial (outtermost) muscles of the back and we dissected the deeper muscles around the spine. I was totally fine until about 9:30 (we started at 8) when we started dissecting the base of the neck and skull. We had to cut the skull and pull back the skin (with hair on it and all) and at that point i decided to step out and get some air. It was the sight and smell that made me get hot all of a sudden, in the beginning i forced myself to not think about the person but seeing her hair made it very very real. Yesterday in lecture our professor told us that whenever we need to, we should go outside for about 5 minutes until we feel better and then stay outside another 5 after that. With formaldehyde its a pretty intense smell so leaning over the body for 3 hours at a time is not exactly comfortable, not to mention very bad for us. For example, i cant wear contacts because the formaldehyde will start to stick to them and thats no bueno.
On a good note, i have decided to run for vice president of our class and will know on Aug 20th if i won the position or not. There are 4 or 5 other people running so we'll see what happens!
Tonight is gonna be a fun night of going to dinner with friends and studying. we will see how much studying actually gets done :)
i dissection down, a LOT more smelly ones to go!!!
:)
Thursday, August 13, 2009
FIRST DISSECTION!!
(I wrote this on Thursday August 13th)
So today was my first day dissecting our cadaver and it wasnt as bad as i thought it would be! Group A had already dissected the superficial (outtermost) muscles and we dissected the deeper muscles around the spine. I was totally fine until about 9:30 (we started at 8) when we started dissecting the base of the neck and skull. We had to cut the skull and pull back the skin (with hair on it and all) and at that point i decided to step out and get some air. It was the sight and smell that made me get hot all of a sudden, in the beginning i forced myself to not think about the person but seeing her hair made it very very real. Yesterday in lecture our professor told us that whenever we need to, we should go outside for about 5 minutes until we feel better and then stay outside another 5 after that. With formaldehyde its a pretty intense smell so leaning over the body for 3 hours at a time is not exactly comfortable, not to mention very bad for us. For example, i cant wear contacts because the formaldehyde fumes will start to stick to them and thats no bueno.
On a good note, i have decided to run for vice president of our class and will know on Aug 20th if i won the position or not. There are 4 or 5 other people running so we'll see what happens!
Tonight is gonna be a fun night of going to dinner with friends and studying. we will see how much studying actually gets done :)
i dissection down, a LOT more smelly ones to go!!!
:)
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
not overwhelmed just yet....
Yesterday was the first day of classes and it was a day full of "Introduction to the Study of Medicine" lectures so it wasnt to bad. We did have Intro to Anatomy in the afternoon but the material hasnt piled on...YET. I still studied for a LONG time last night though. Our schedule works out where we have to study and LEARN the information dissected/lectured for the following day. Thus, Mondy night is spent preparing for the dissection to be done on Tuesday morning and a lecture quiz on the same material at the beginning of class which has not yet been taught to us. crazy!
I did not actually dissect today because we have a Group A and Group B. Basically, I will do every other dissection. In each group there are 4 people so they are 8 total working on one cadavar. At the last 30min of lab, the group that did not dissect will come into lab and the dissecting group will go over everything they did and vice versa for the next day. Group A dissected the superficial back muscles today and I (in Group B) came at 11:15 to be shown what they dissected and study the muscles they revealed. Sooooo, I did get to touch, feel, and learn from a cadavar today. A very big deal!!
Our cadavar is a woman that died at the age of 60. I do not know how I feel about this whole situation yet but since we are working on her back muscles right now I think I won't freak out until we start work on the anterior (front) of her body. Either way, I have nothing but respect and gratitude for her decision to donate her body in order for me to become a competent physician.
Tomorrow is another dull day of "Intro to Medicine" with lectures on Self awareness, professionalism, learning styles, Developing an Osteopathic identity, and some other Physician and Society Classes. Thursday morning it is back to the lab when I will be exposing the deep back muscles of the cadavar!
I did not actually dissect today because we have a Group A and Group B. Basically, I will do every other dissection. In each group there are 4 people so they are 8 total working on one cadavar. At the last 30min of lab, the group that did not dissect will come into lab and the dissecting group will go over everything they did and vice versa for the next day. Group A dissected the superficial back muscles today and I (in Group B) came at 11:15 to be shown what they dissected and study the muscles they revealed. Sooooo, I did get to touch, feel, and learn from a cadavar today. A very big deal!!
Our cadavar is a woman that died at the age of 60. I do not know how I feel about this whole situation yet but since we are working on her back muscles right now I think I won't freak out until we start work on the anterior (front) of her body. Either way, I have nothing but respect and gratitude for her decision to donate her body in order for me to become a competent physician.
Tomorrow is another dull day of "Intro to Medicine" with lectures on Self awareness, professionalism, learning styles, Developing an Osteopathic identity, and some other Physician and Society Classes. Thursday morning it is back to the lab when I will be exposing the deep back muscles of the cadavar!
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