Oops I did it again...

Dumb title, I know, but I feel bad I'm slacking on the blogging again. As it turns out, life gets busy. Anatomy is over and actually the block after anatomy is over! It's not as bad as it seems though, since our last block (Macromolecules) was only 8 days long. Did you ever hear the "medical school is like a trying to take a drink out of a fire hose analogy"...








I know how you feel.
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The last anatomy test went really well, and today's test turned out much better than I had expected. I'm trying really hard to stay away from the "just have to memorize this for the test" mindset and embrace the "I really want to understand the changes of the DNA double helix when adding more KCl to the buffer solution so I can apply the concepts to my career one day" pattern of thought. It's hard.

The hardest part is that often there isn't enough time to understand the material at a level beyond memorizing. Couple that with the fact that we're tested with multiple choice questions every day and you have a recipe for "know it for the test." Quizes, exams, the boards... we're always going to have to know the "answer." One of my classmates made the point that in the clinic, medicine really isn't a, b, c, d or all of the above. It's usually: how old is the patient, have they ever felt that pain before, does any one else in the family have experience with this symptom, what do they do for a living, what do they think is going on, what have they tried so far and has it helped, does anything make it worse? I wonder if there's a class on applying the multiple choice answer to the real life situation?

The good news is: my house is clean (including the shower and toilet!), the laundry is done and this weekend I'm spending time with Matt, my sister-in-law Amy, the Bmore crew and the child Matt and I are mentoring at the Kids vs. Mentors football game!

The After Picture

We had an awesome time at the Warrior Dash! It was so fun to be active, get muddy and drink beers on Sunday :) It wasn't easy... as confirmed by the fact that it's Tuesday and I'm still having trouble walking up steps... but I'd do it again.

Don't worry, 75% of those clothes did not come home with us! We were hosed down by a fire truck, seriously, and then changed into clean clothes to enjoy the festival. I even donated my muddy shoes to charity :)

Warriors, Report for Battle!

Today is the Warrior Dash! A bunch of us are driving an hour into PA to run a 3.15 mile course set up with 13 obstacles... everything from climbing a wooden barricade to manuvering over cargo nets to crawling under barbed wire. Basically I'm terrified. I'm going with the group of friends that sends out the "let's do the Baltimore Marathon Relay!" or "Going for a run at 9am if anyone wants to join!" emails that I promptly delete. In the spirit of joining in on one of these "running" events I decided to actually sign up for this one. I mean, I won't actually have to run 3.15 miles straight... I get breaks to, um, climb over large stacks of hay. What was I thinking...
I'm guessing mine is going to be more of a Warrior Slight Jog than a Warrior Dash.

Anatomy lab is over

Today was our last day in the anatomy lab. One of my lab partners said it well: now that it's over it went by so fast...

We saw everything, and I mean everything, that makes up the human body: skin, muscles, nerves, vessels, fat, bones, organs, fascia (which is basically the term for "everything else that we can't really identify). It's so incredible how each person starts from a few small cells and develops into a fully functioning, thinking, expressive, emotional human. Over the past few weeks we've had a bunch of lectures on embryology and development - which makes me appreciate life even more.

I guess it wasn't so bad - and in fact - it was pretty awesome!

When the first sentence is...

"The head must be detached from the vertebral column to allow a posterior approach to the cervical viscera" you know it's going to be a difficult dissection. The cervical viscera includes the pharynx, esophagus, larynx, and trachea with associated muscles, nerves and vessels. I guess we need to actually see how the nose and mouth are connected to the lungs and stomach.

We're nearing the end of our dissection of a human cadaver and although it's still ridiculously interesting to literally discover the large and small intricacies of the human body... the disarticulation of the head makes me ready to call it a day. Should I even mention that part of the dissection calls for bisection of the head? "Saw through the skull from superior to inferior." Awesome. And by awesome, I mean ugh. Keep in mind that our lady still has her nose, eyes (well, one of them remains in it's socket... we did eyes last week), lips and tongue. I'm pretty sure at this point I should NOT mention that I cut up beef into cubes and stir-fried them for dinner tonight.

We started with the chest in late August, then the abdomen, lower limbs, back, and upper limbs in September, and now the head and neck in October. Times flies when you're identifying (and really trying your best to memorize) every single muscle, never, artery, vein, bone and joint in the human body.

This picture from the BodyWorlds exhibit is actually pretty much what our body looks like after detaching one of the attachment points of many of the muscles. FYI: your forearm (elbow to wrist) has 19 muscles. Wow.

My good friend Jenny and I went to see the BodyWorlds exhibit in Baltimore in February 2008 and at the time she was getting her doctorate in Physical Therapy. As we walked through she kept saying, "You're going to learn all about all of this stuff when you dissect the body and you're going to love it!" I really wish we could go back through the exhibit together, as Jenny is a practicing Physical Therapist here in Baltimore now, and enjoy it again with this huge knowledge base I now have to draw from.

These are the muscles of facial expression (occipitofrontalis, orbicularis oculi, orbicularis oris, zygomaticus major and minor, buccinator, levator labii superioris, and depressor anguli oris). They are innervated by branchiomotor branches of cranial nerve VII... the oh so super fun facial nerve. ... Just in case you're taking a test on that soon :)

Congratulations Rob and Val!

One million congratulations to my cousin Robert and his high school sweetheart! Here is the crazy creative proposal video. Enjoy :)

And we're back!

Wow, it's been too long! (Diana - I don't know how you get a post in EVERY day!!! Good work!)

This past week as been super busy, but really awesome! Some of the highlights:

- Last weekend was fun filled with Matt's high school's Homecoming football game, a really great housewarming party in Alexandria, VA for wonderful friends, and a good-bye taco themed potluck for a girlfriend moving to Ohio.

- Second anatomy exam went really well!

- Practice musculoskeletal exam with a standardized patient actor - super helpful in learning how to do a physical exam and get comfortable talking to patients

- Tutoring a Dunbar High School student - which didn't actually go super well... but at least he knows I don't play! He WILL be passing his classes this year. All of them!

- Practice pediatric interview for a 6 month old well-baby visit! It was awesome to have children running around our simulation center (rows of exam rooms set up for us to practice in). Interviewing this new mother and watching her with her baby really helped ground what we are learning each week.

- Quick trip to Harrisburg to see my mom, Bridget, Mike and their new baby Juliana!

So, I will really try much harder to keep up to date with this blog. I do want to describe what we are doing in lab: dissecting the head and neck. We finished with the upper and lower limbs - which means that 80% of her muscles are hanging by one of their tendons to her body - and moved on to our last 2 week block of the super complicated head and neck.

Tuesday's post should have been: "What did you do today?" "Oh, I skinned a head."
Wednesday's post should have been: "Today we sawed the skull open and took out the brain."

Clearly it has been an interesting week.