The First Cut is the Deepest

Ouch. Just got back my first test score, and it was much less than satisfactory. About the only good thing I can say is that my excellent quiz average gives me an overall passing score. Barely. The class average was a 74 with a standard deviation of 8 points. Most everyone I know got a similarly shitty grade. Hopefully the next test will be much better and will pull my average out of the dirt. Next test is a week from Friday and will mostly cover the cardiovascular system.

Monday morning we went over the anatomy and embryological development of the heart, which is a pretty complex subject... lots of minor details to remember. In the afternoon we went over the painfully boring subject of purine metabolism in biochem, and continued with pyrimidine metabolism early Tuesday morning. Later in the morning we covered cardiovascular histology, which seems to be the least painful histo lecture so far. In the afternoon we met with our new humanities groups which now include nursing students, and our case studies seemed to focus on doctor/nurse conflict and doctor's ego.

This morning, we had our first "Intro to Clinical Skills" class, where we are basically going to learn how to take patient histories and perform physical examinations. It seems like an awesome class and I am looking forward to it. In a few weeks we will even be examining actual patients, not just each other. After that we went over the anatomy of the deep and superficial back region, which was fairly straightforward. In the afternoon we had anatomy lab, where we were finally able to dissect the heart. It is an interesting feeling to hold a human heart in your hand. Unlike most of the dissections we have done, the interior of the heart is so sturdy that it maintains appearances almost identical to textbook images. It has definitely been one of my favorite labs so far.