Hand Covers Bruise

Friday morning we had a mandatory "genetics panel" meeting, which we knew nothing about other than we had to wear professional dress. When we arrived, we learned that 3 families were visiting to discuss their children, who were all affected by genetic disorders. It was a very intense and emotional presentation, as the first two families each had a child who died in their infancy due to metabolic disorders. The first presentation was from a husband and wife whose child died before a year of age (this was around 20 years ago, before genetic testing was a routine process), and have since adopted two children due to the high risk of their next child having the same disorder. The second presentation was given by a mother whose daughter died before she was 2 years old, and got a divorce shortly afterwards (as is the case for the majority of couples who lose a child). The final presentation was by a couple whose daughter suffers from osteogenesis imperfecta (brittle bone disease). The woman in question was present as well, and is now 28 years old. The disease stopped her growth at an early age and required many surgeries to fix disfigured limbs. She is confined to a wheelchair and is unable to walk. After the presentations we were able to talk to the families as well as view x-rays of all the surgeries and broken bones that the young woman with OI had suffered throughout her lifetime. It was a very impressive presentation and everyone got a lot out of it.

Aside from that, all my free time has been spent studying. The rest of the weekend is going to be intense, as there is still a large amount of material to catch up on.

Never As Tired As When I'm Waking Up

Whew, the final bunch of lectures for this exam was a bit of a doozy. Monday morning we had a lecture over genetics testing, followed by pharmacogenetics. The second lecture was so confusing that even after reading it over again I don't understand much of it, if any at all. In the afternoon we had histo lab over the female reproductive system, during which my group had to go around and help anyone who was confused. It was definitely made lab more interesting than it usually is. Tuesday morning we had back to back pharmacology lectures. The first was very interesting and discussed experimental gene therapy, which is using DNA carried in viruses to treat other diseases. The second lecture was rather boring but dealt with the considerations that must be kept in mind when delivering drugs to infants, pregnant women, and the elderly. In the afternoon we had our usual humanities lecture, this time about abuse of power. Finally, this morning we had our clinical skills class, which dealt with the topic of major diseases and their symptoms, as well as symptoms that may not be related to any disease. We are actually done with lectures for the week, although the sheer volume of information they threw at us this week more than makes up for that. I've been very short of sleep the past few days, hopefully I can get some rest soon. The next five days will most likely involve me locked up at home or the medical school trying to fit all this stuff into my brain. Big surprise.

Must Get Out

What an awesome end to the week. Friday morning we had back to back genetics lectures about DNA analysis. Abby and I had most of the afternoon off while our tankmates finished the second part of the pelvic dissection. Later in the afternoon my histo lab group had DPTS, which is where the histo profs teach us the next lab in advance, and we will in turn be going around the lab as assistants to answer any questions that other students may have. It is a pretty cool system and it helps us get answers to questions with limited staff available. Immediately following this, Caleb and I headed down to Houston for the Maroon 5 concert in the Woodlands. Early in the show I met a group of fellow Aggies who bought me a beer... the Aggie network never ceases to amaze me. The show was fantastic; Adam Levine was full of energy and got the audience involved in singing parts of several songs. OneRepublic was the opening band, and they were also amazing. I hadn't heard their newest album, but their performance made me go out and buy it. I drove back after the show and passed out. This weekend has just been nonstop studying, and I expect the next week is going to suck, since our test is next Monday. Stay tuned.

Jaded

Well then. We got our CPM I grades back this week, and it is just now starting to sink in that the block is over. Overall I was quite satisfied with my standing at the end of the block. Not much else to say about that other than I feel that this second block is going to be a significant improvement over the prior.

Tuesday was a pretty simple day. In the morning we had our first genetics lecture which was quite interesting. The professor is pretty good and she lectures well. In the afternoon we had a special guest speaker in lieu of our humanities small group. A woman came to speak to us about allocating limited medical resources... she was in New Orleans during Katrina and was stuck for days in a hospital taking care of patients, and ended up having to choose which patients to save and which ones were beyond saving. She also went to Haiti after the earthquake hit to treat patients there. It was a fascinating lecture and everyone loved it. Wednesday morning we had our clinical skills class where we had another fascinating guest speaker. The day's topic was death and dying, and our speaker was a cancer patient whose 10 year old son died of cancer some years ago. A very insightful and powerful talk. In the afternoon, we had histo lab where we examined various tissues from the male reproductive system. This morning I skipped out on genetics which started at 8:30 and watched it online later instead. Histo lecture was right before lunch, and we learned about tissues of the female reproductive system. In the afternoon we had a panel of M4s come to answer any questions we had, but we didn't learn anything that we hadn't heard a dozen times before. This whole week went by in kind of a huge blur and all of the lectures sort of seemed to blend into each other. Tomorrow I have class all day and then I am headed to the Woodlands for a Maroon 5 concert, which I am beyond ecstatic for.

Phantom Limb

Wow. Today's anatomy lab was so awesome I had to write about it immediately. But first things first. My parents came up this weekend; I gave them a tour of the new medical campus and then we spent most of the remaining time shopping and eating. I also took them to watch The Social Network, which sparked quite a bit of discussion... I think they enjoyed it. They spent the night at my apartment and then headed back home after breakfast on Sunday.

And now for today. In the morning there was a 2 hour histology lecture on elements of the male reproductive system, followed by an interesting clinical correlation presented by a local gynecologist. He showed us pictures and videos of various unique (and often bizarre) cases he has encountered, and showed us how most of our lecture material is applied to real world situations. In the afternoon was our anatomy lab, and it was intense. The majority of the lab was spent removing an entire leg from our cadaver at the pelvis. this involved sawing the pelvis in half through the midline, from the perineum all the way up to the bellybutton level. I then made a horizontal cut from just above the hip towards the first cut at the bellybutton. This allowed for total removal of that leg, and made it possible to examine the pelvis in cross-section, which was the goal of the lab. It was pretty intense and it was amusing to see some of the methods other tanks used to accomplish this task. This has definitely been my favorite lab session so far.

Worker Bee

Well this was a long, interesting week. Wednesday morning we had our usual clinical skills class followed by a histo lecture on the renal system. We had the afternoon off, so it was a pretty short day. However, they made up for this on Thursday. We had a two hour anatomy lecture on the pelvis, which was only the first part of a two-part lecture. There was a lot of info to take in, and they followed it up with two embryology lectures. The first was over the development of the genital system, and the following lecture was over development of the urinary system. Needless to say it will be a busy weekend. As if that wasn't enough, this morning we had another two hour anatomy lecture to finish up the pelvic region. This was followed by a histo lab in which we examined tissues of the renal system. In the afternoon, we had anatomy lab where we dissected the posterior abdominal wall (mainly the kidneys and nerves located around that area). It was a pretty exhausting week with a lot to absorb, and with my parents coming up on Saturday I will likely be trying to catch up all next week.

Sigh No More

Well, the test wasn't nearly as bad as I thought. I think I got nearly every anatomy question right on the exam, and the powerpoint wasn't as tough as the past ones have been. The written part was the toughie this time, with several math problems for pharmacology that weren't particularly hard, but sucked up alot of test time that could have been spent going over skipped questions. After the test we all went out to celebrate at Logan's and had a blast... there must have been 40 of us barhopping before we ended up there. Quite the wild night.

Today we jumped right back into things. After an intro to the second block of medical school that overviewed the next 10 weeks, we had back to back anatomy lectures. The first covered the posterior abdominal wall, including structures such as the kidneys and associated vessels. The second covered the perineum, which is the area between the vagina/scrotum and the anus, as well as the structures inside (there are a lot of them). In the afternoon we had our weekly humanities session on informed consent, which put a damper on an otherwise interesting day. Definitely looking forward to the rest of this week since we are mostly doing more anatomy. Whoop!

Give a Little More

So much studying to get done, so little time.... at least we didn't have any more lectures this week. Aside from our clinical correlations class Wednesday morning, and two histo labs over the GI system and associated glands on Wednesday and Thursday afternoons, we didn't even have any class. And still, it is not enough time.... the next 36 hours will be rough.

Long Road to Ruin

This weekend is officially going to suck. There's already so much material I don't even know what to focus on, and this week has just given us more. Monday morning we went over drug elimination and transformation in pharmacology. Once again, this was not bad. Pharm seems pretty easy. This was followed by an excruciating histo lecture on GI structures given by the astoundingly ineffective Dr. Chico. Not only are her lectures confusing and filled with dumb errors, but her notes are the most horribly organized I've seen since my undergrad botany class. Her note sets are like one really long essay, filled with minutiae and irrelevant details or unnecessary explanations. At least she rarely lectures. In the afternoon we looked at respiratory structures in histo lab, which was pretty straightforward. This morning we had our last pharmacology lecture over pharmacokinetics, which is basically what happens to all the drugs that enter our body. More easy stuff. This was followed by yet another Chico lecture on the glands associated with the GI tract. In the afternoon was our usual humanities meeting in which we talked about honesty with patients. Exciting.

Back to the grind, I have a lot left to wrap my head around and I have to get it all locked down by Monday. Thankfully we are done with lecture and only have labs the rest of the week.

Even Deeper

And the mountain of material keeps getting higher...

Wednesday morning we had our intro to clinical skills class, where we interviewed a retired doctor over the cardiovascular system to try and diagnose heart disease. It was an interesting lecture as usual; Dr. Wiprud is one of my favorite instructors. This was followed by our first pharmacology lecture, which was surprisingly basic and was not difficult or complicated in any way. Abby and I had the afternoon off, so Caleb, Mike, and Bryan had to teach us the abdomen dissection on Thursday afternoon. It was pretty cool finally getting into the real guts, although it only reinforced my avoidance of McDonald's forever. Thursday morning we had a biochem lecture over cell signaling which I slept in for. It was followed by our second pharmacology lecture over drug absorption and distribution through the body, which was actually pretty interesting not very difficult. In the afternoon, we had histo lab where we examined slides of various glands of the immune system, which was not as bad as the blood and marrow slides.

Thursday evening I had reunion with some old friends from undergrad at one of their homes; we had dinner and drinks and watched the A&M game, which was great up until the very end when we lost. Later on, I joined a group of med students in watching the midnight premiere of The Social Network. The movie was fantastic. This morning we had another histology lecture, but this time it was taught by Dr. Hubbard and was much less intense than the previous two lectures. It was over the cells of the respiratory system. It is a rather odd time to cover the subject, but as he said, there isn't really any good place to stick this lecture. In the afternoon we finished dissecting the organs and vessels of the abdominal cavity, which was mostly straightforward. I just woke from an awesome nap and will now begin the long weekend of nonstop studying once again...