Give 'er!
2/15/2009
Gotta Hand It to You
Feeling much better after Saturday evening's dissection of the hand went off pretty well. Gotta stop complaining, and just get in there.
2/14/2009
Give 'er!
The title is a shout-out to Canada. Oh, and to Vijay from my anatomy lab group.
So, some quick news: lots of studying in the weeks leading up to my first exam paid off. I ended up with A's in all subjects! Unfortunately, I didn't have a lot of time to celebrate - we have two lab practical exams in the two-week period following the first written exam. However, I did celebrate a little bit. I joined a bunch of schoolmates at a local "club" on the beach in Portsmouth called The Purple Turtle. At one point, I needed a walk to clear my head, so I walked along the beach, and was offered marijuana by at least two locals (a third local was unintelligible). I declined, and got the hell out of there. It was time for bed.
I took the Histology practical exam Friday morning, which didn't go as well. I nailed the cell biology part of the exam, but a lot of the light microscopy slides were difficult to distinguish. I'm pretty sure that I'll be taking a small hit in the grade because of the practical, but not too much.
This weekend is almost completely devoted to anatomy lab. We have a practical exam coming up on Thursday, so all of the first and second semester students have flooded the lab to go over the cadavers. The practical exam will make use of nearly every body in the lab, so it doesn't help just to know the details of your table's specimen. Students are going from table to table, looking them over from head to toe to make sure they are familiar with the anatomy of the bodies in general, rather than the specific anatomy of their own body. Unfortunately, this flood is preventing me and my group from finishing up our dissection of the hand.
Speaking of which, I really need to vent. I'm so frustrated with gross lab. I'm not good at this. In fact, I would go so far as to say I'm bad at this. I know the theoretical anatomy cold, and if you handed me a copy of Netter's Atlas of Human Anatomy without any labels, I'd be able to label everything there. When I try to dig around and find structures in the real thing, though, I end up cutting through things I shouldn't, horribly dismantling structures that need to be left intact. This even happens when we're being extra-cautious, because it will take us forever to do something, and then when we get tired of making zero progress, we'll try to move a little more aggressively, and BOOM! goes the dynamite - the patient's axillary artery has been severed, and he's dead on the table (again). Thursday, I was trying to get underneath the palmar fascia and aponeurosis - the stuff covering the muscles, vessels, and bones of the palm/hand. And as soon as I make a small incision, I see that I've cut an important vessel: the superficial palmar arch, something we were supposed to find, clean up, and keep intact.
So, some quick news: lots of studying in the weeks leading up to my first exam paid off. I ended up with A's in all subjects! Unfortunately, I didn't have a lot of time to celebrate - we have two lab practical exams in the two-week period following the first written exam. However, I did celebrate a little bit. I joined a bunch of schoolmates at a local "club" on the beach in Portsmouth called The Purple Turtle. At one point, I needed a walk to clear my head, so I walked along the beach, and was offered marijuana by at least two locals (a third local was unintelligible). I declined, and got the hell out of there. It was time for bed.
I took the Histology practical exam Friday morning, which didn't go as well. I nailed the cell biology part of the exam, but a lot of the light microscopy slides were difficult to distinguish. I'm pretty sure that I'll be taking a small hit in the grade because of the practical, but not too much.
This weekend is almost completely devoted to anatomy lab. We have a practical exam coming up on Thursday, so all of the first and second semester students have flooded the lab to go over the cadavers. The practical exam will make use of nearly every body in the lab, so it doesn't help just to know the details of your table's specimen. Students are going from table to table, looking them over from head to toe to make sure they are familiar with the anatomy of the bodies in general, rather than the specific anatomy of their own body. Unfortunately, this flood is preventing me and my group from finishing up our dissection of the hand.
Speaking of which, I really need to vent. I'm so frustrated with gross lab. I'm not good at this. In fact, I would go so far as to say I'm bad at this. I know the theoretical anatomy cold, and if you handed me a copy of Netter's Atlas of Human Anatomy without any labels, I'd be able to label everything there. When I try to dig around and find structures in the real thing, though, I end up cutting through things I shouldn't, horribly dismantling structures that need to be left intact. This even happens when we're being extra-cautious, because it will take us forever to do something, and then when we get tired of making zero progress, we'll try to move a little more aggressively, and BOOM! goes the dynamite - the patient's axillary artery has been severed, and he's dead on the table (again). Thursday, I was trying to get underneath the palmar fascia and aponeurosis - the stuff covering the muscles, vessels, and bones of the palm/hand. And as soon as I make a small incision, I see that I've cut an important vessel: the superficial palmar arch, something we were supposed to find, clean up, and keep intact.
Surgery may be off the table, which is a shame, because I really enjoy anatomy and I thought that surgery would be a great way to pursue it. But not if I do to patients what I've done to the cadaver.
I promise that I'll post a little more about the island stuff soon. I have a three-day weekend next week, and I'm planning on going out to the Cabrits, taking a bunch of pictures. That'll be more fun for everyone, blogger and reader alike. Until then, take care, and Happy Valentines' Day!
2/10/2009
First Test: Vanquished?
Friends and relations!
Long time no blog. Actually, that's kind of a ridiculous statement, considering that when I first began my blog years ago, I never wrote a second post. Instead, I deleted the whole thing to start this puppy. So what if it's been around two weeks since my last post? I'm doing great here! Stop complaining!
Monday, February 9th, I took my first test in medical school, and I thought it would be a good opportunity to give some insight into the testing that takes place at Ross University.
I'm taking the following courses this semester: Gross Anatomy I; Biochemistry I; Physiology I; Developmental and Microscopic Anatomy I (really, it's Histology); and Doctor, Patient, and Society I. All of the courses are lecture-based, but there is a minor lab component to Histology, and a big lab component to Gross Anatomy. When we take exams for all of these courses, we take big block exams with questions from each class. So the test I took on Monday featured 14 questions from DPS, 22 from Anatomy, 36 from Histology, and 44 from Biochem. Actually, that only adds up to 116, whereas there were 117 multiple choice questions on the exam. Oh, well, you get the idea. The exam began at 1 pm and we had about 2.5 hours to finish. All of this is designed to mimic the licensing exams that we'll have to take after we finish our coursework at different points in medical school (I'll leave off explaining all of that until I get there). We'll have 3 of these "Minis" as they're known here, and then a cumulative comprehensive Final Exam in the last week of the semester. Additionally, we will have at least two lab practical exams for each of the lab components, the first of which is on Friday the 13th, in Histology.
I was pretty nervous about the exam as it approached. I had been studying every day this semester, and as this weekend came and went, my motivation declined a little. I just didn't feel like I could learn any more than I already had. I went through a lot of practice questions to identify any trouble areas, but mostly I just tried to get my mental state right for the test. I finished the test early after answering everything and checking my answers, and I feel pretty good about how I performed. We'll get our grades for the exam sometime this week. If you see me back in Panama City in two weeks, you'll know that it did not go well. Actually, if you never hear from me again, you'll know that it went really badly.
After the exam, the SGA here threw a party down on the beach, and there was a party at a local club. I went out and woke up feeling ragged today. I don't think I'll repeat THAT part of the post-exam performance in the future (and my tortured brain thanks me).
Send me any questions you might have. I want to do a quick post on where I'm actually living and student residences later this week, with pictures for my me.com web gallery. Until then, take care!
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