It's been a while, it's been tough to "find time" to update the blog. This week is going to be a rough one - midterm exam time. Anatomy (written multiple choice and practical "pinable structures" in the lab) on monday, Biochem on wednesday, and CTS on friday. Plus, U2 is coming to town Thursday night. Good thing almost all of the CTS exam comes straight from the practice quizzes (but there are tons and tons of questions per lecture - one had over 70!!!).
My birthday was last Wednesday - didn't get too crazy with all the work I had to do but I was able to go out and have a little bit of fun. Each year I am so surprised at the people who come out of the woodwork to write on my wall to wish me a happy birthday. It really makes you appreciate all the different people you've met along the way - and it's been awesome to get to know such a wide variety with all of the things I've done. Definitely pretty special!
Despite my best efforts to stay ahead of the material, I still can't believe how much we need to know for these exams. Many people are especially concerned about the anatomy practical - we have to go into the lab with a sheet of paper (NO multiple choice here!) and they pin a structure on the cadaver and say for example ("identify" or "what nerve innervates this" or "gives 2 actions of this muscle"). It gets especially tricky with joints (and bones of the hand/foot - yikes.....), you have to be pretty specific. "Flexion of the arm" gets me nowhere - I have to specify between the "elbow" and the "glenohumeral" joint (shoulder). The many similar names also get a bit confusing (see supraspinatus muscle and suprascapular nerve, and thoracoacromial artery/thoracodorsal nerve). On the positive side, they only pin structures where it can reasonably be identified by nearby landmarks. I'll be going in to the lab tomorrow at 9 AM (no sleeping in for this guy!) to do a full review - I hope it goes well!!!
Interspersing my other classes while studying for anatomy has been tough... I might not get a ton of sleep tonight :( But then again, it's the rest 2 nights before the main event that matters most, so I probably won't be up too late!! I'll check in again after this Anatomy exam! Good thing it's all just straight pass/fail!!
Saturday, September 26, 2009
Monday, September 14, 2009
Kids
I'll try to update more frequently - tough to find time! Class attendance has started to drop off a bit - I guess people would rather sleep in and watch the lecture online (via podcasts posted online) at a more convenient time. It sounds like a good idea, but who am I fooling - I don't have near the discipline to sit down for an hour and watch a lecture online. Plus, it would be pretty easy to be anti-social and never see anyone by just never showing up to class. We have another biochem quiz this week - lots of information on it, but I'm not super worried.
I've dubbed this week in Anatomy the dreaded "quad" week - 4 labs in one week. Group A does labs 9 and 11 on Monday and Thursday, while Group B (that's me) does 10 and 12 on Tuesday and Friday. Yep, we're responsible for all of it. Don't even get me started on how Group A never has Friday lab (so they often get Fridays completely off!!) It's pretty rough, but fortunately this is the only week like this. Our lab director told our group 2 weeks ago that this is the toughest few weeks we will have in anatomy - apparently it slows down considerably after the first exam. Exams are in 2 weeks, I'm curious to see how people cope with the challenge. Could be entertaining! I've been working reasonably hard to keep up with the material to avoid cramming for the exams - not that it would be really possible anyway (at least for Anatomy and Biochem) given the unbelievable amount of information covered. We're already through Lecture 23 in Biochem - where has the time gone??
UVA football continues to redefine pathetic - one of my favorite sports writers Mike Wilbon referred to the ACC as "stinky" and to UVA specifically as the "captain of stink." Pretty accurate - Cav Man falling off his horse to start Saturday's game pretty much summed up the state of UVA football. Enough on that.
Finally, CONGRATS to Allison and John having their first child (and my 2nd nephew), Jack! I CAN'T WAIT to meet him over Fall Break in 3 weeks! Speaking of which, I need to get his present pronto! That's all I have for now, more later.
I've dubbed this week in Anatomy the dreaded "quad" week - 4 labs in one week. Group A does labs 9 and 11 on Monday and Thursday, while Group B (that's me) does 10 and 12 on Tuesday and Friday. Yep, we're responsible for all of it. Don't even get me started on how Group A never has Friday lab (so they often get Fridays completely off!!) It's pretty rough, but fortunately this is the only week like this. Our lab director told our group 2 weeks ago that this is the toughest few weeks we will have in anatomy - apparently it slows down considerably after the first exam. Exams are in 2 weeks, I'm curious to see how people cope with the challenge. Could be entertaining! I've been working reasonably hard to keep up with the material to avoid cramming for the exams - not that it would be really possible anyway (at least for Anatomy and Biochem) given the unbelievable amount of information covered. We're already through Lecture 23 in Biochem - where has the time gone??
UVA football continues to redefine pathetic - one of my favorite sports writers Mike Wilbon referred to the ACC as "stinky" and to UVA specifically as the "captain of stink." Pretty accurate - Cav Man falling off his horse to start Saturday's game pretty much summed up the state of UVA football. Enough on that.
Finally, CONGRATS to Allison and John having their first child (and my 2nd nephew), Jack! I CAN'T WAIT to meet him over Fall Break in 3 weeks! Speaking of which, I need to get his present pronto! That's all I have for now, more later.
Sunday, September 6, 2009
Already Gone
The title pretty much sums up the UVA football season. Done before it even started. As a long-time Wahoo fan and avid football fan, I can't even begin to explain how disappointed I am. Every year we have high hopes for the team, and everyone involved talks up the team and how strong it will be, but starting off losing to a Division I-AA school in William and Mary (and not a top D I-AA school either!) really doesn't bode well for the season. 7 turnovers - are you kidding me? It was unbelievable. I can't believe that was many of my classmates' first glimpse into UVA athletics - who will want to go to games now? On the bright side, I had a great turnout for the tailgate I ran before the game and it was awesome to see some of my undergraduate friends as well! In other football news, we learned this week about separated shoulders in anatomy, which is exactly what happened to OU's Sam Bradford on Saturday night. It was cool to see a real-life example of something we learned!
Last Wednesday I started my Social Issues in Medicine (SIM) community service at a center for at-risk teens. We spent about an hour total playing basketball - my total ineptness at least kept the teens pretty entertained. All in all, I had fun and it was nice to have a break from the wire-to-wire studying.
On Thursday we were "thrown into the fire" so to speak as we had our first hospital interviews with real patients. We were paired off and each of us talked to a patient and gathered their history for about 30 minutes. A few of my classmates reported some difficulty establishing a good relationship with the patient - it made me think back to how I had the same issues starting off as a fresh EMT 4 years ago. We do not spend 30 minutes talking to patients in EMS though, but I was pleasantly surprised at how much my patient opened up about his past and his feelings about his illness. It was definitely a powerful experience. I'm looking forward to helping some of my classmates interview people - it's definitely something you have to do often to become comfortable with.
Spent pretty much all day today reviewing anatomy, and went into the lab this evening to review some of the structures. I was surprised at how many of the parts I could identify correctly! We move to the hand and the legs this week - I'll definitely need to do my best to keep up!
Last Wednesday I started my Social Issues in Medicine (SIM) community service at a center for at-risk teens. We spent about an hour total playing basketball - my total ineptness at least kept the teens pretty entertained. All in all, I had fun and it was nice to have a break from the wire-to-wire studying.
On Thursday we were "thrown into the fire" so to speak as we had our first hospital interviews with real patients. We were paired off and each of us talked to a patient and gathered their history for about 30 minutes. A few of my classmates reported some difficulty establishing a good relationship with the patient - it made me think back to how I had the same issues starting off as a fresh EMT 4 years ago. We do not spend 30 minutes talking to patients in EMS though, but I was pleasantly surprised at how much my patient opened up about his past and his feelings about his illness. It was definitely a powerful experience. I'm looking forward to helping some of my classmates interview people - it's definitely something you have to do often to become comfortable with.
Spent pretty much all day today reviewing anatomy, and went into the lab this evening to review some of the structures. I was surprised at how many of the parts I could identify correctly! We move to the hand and the legs this week - I'll definitely need to do my best to keep up!
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
September
Whew, it's been quite a week so far and I'm not even through Wednesday! In Anatomy Lab we have two groups, and typically each group will do a separate lab during their times. What does that mean? Yesterday during lab, we had to go over what the other group did on Monday as well as do our own dissection of the arm and forearm. 2 labs in one day was really, really tough. Plus we were introduced to the lovely difference between nerves and arteries. Yeah, not only do we need to know the muscles (telling the coracobrachialis and the brachialis apart, and then finding the musculocuaneous nerve!), but also the nerves that innervate them. It was rough, plus having 10+ muscles in the forearm to deal with was also interesting, to say the least. In sum: after 4.5 hours in the lab, we were all very ready to go home!
With our first online quizzes in CTS and Biochem things are starting to heat up around here (while the mornings have been getting pretty chilly), I cannot wait to be done with them on Friday! This weekend should be a blast - opening football game vs. William & Mary!
Each medical student is placed out in the community for "Social Issues in Medicine," which I start officially late today. I'll have more to say about that tomorrow.
Congrats to my sister and brother for both finding a house! Should be interesting to have all these families within about a half mile of my parents. I know they looked pretty much forever for places, so I'm sure they're excited. Well, back to work. Look for more tomorrow.
With our first online quizzes in CTS and Biochem things are starting to heat up around here (while the mornings have been getting pretty chilly), I cannot wait to be done with them on Friday! This weekend should be a blast - opening football game vs. William & Mary!
Each medical student is placed out in the community for "Social Issues in Medicine," which I start officially late today. I'll have more to say about that tomorrow.
Congrats to my sister and brother for both finding a house! Should be interesting to have all these families within about a half mile of my parents. I know they looked pretty much forever for places, so I'm sure they're excited. Well, back to work. Look for more tomorrow.
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
The First Cut is the Deepest
Probably a weak title, but yesterday we began dissecting our cadaver! We had to expose (on one side of the back) the extrinsic and instrinsic muscles of the back. Cutting is the easy part - the hard (and hugely time consuming) part is "cleaning" the muscles afterwards of fat attached to it so we can have a good look at it. Some cadavers in the lab literally have skin then muscle, we weren't so lucky! It took us about 2 hours to get most of the fat off (we were dissecting from the neck all the way down to the lower back), but at least the anatomy professors kept walking by commenting "beautiful dissection" and "really superb job!" All 4 people in my group got plenty of time with the scalpel - doing this stuff kinda got old after a while!
We were in lab a total of 4 hours yesterday - by the end we were all pretty set on going home. 8 - 5 is a pretty long day, especially since class in the morning is so intense. Having anatomy lab in the afternoons will definitely make Tuesdays a long one! Everyone was pretty exhausted afterwards - a nap was just what the doctor ordered!
Rocked the embryology quiz - and so did everyone else! Almost 100 out of 144 got over a 90 on the 25 question quiz. That's pretty intense... We'll see how long those grades keep up!
Since I'm in Anatomy group "B" I have the day off ("A" is in the lab today), but I'll be spending most of my time in the library.
We were in lab a total of 4 hours yesterday - by the end we were all pretty set on going home. 8 - 5 is a pretty long day, especially since class in the morning is so intense. Having anatomy lab in the afternoons will definitely make Tuesdays a long one! Everyone was pretty exhausted afterwards - a nap was just what the doctor ordered!
Rocked the embryology quiz - and so did everyone else! Almost 100 out of 144 got over a 90 on the 25 question quiz. That's pretty intense... We'll see how long those grades keep up!
Since I'm in Anatomy group "B" I have the day off ("A" is in the lab today), but I'll be spending most of my time in the library.
Sunday, August 23, 2009
Rainy Weekend - Umbrella
The first week of real classes is over. Whew, what a whirlwind. I'm sure I've said it before, but the sheer amount of information we are given in such a short time (50 minute lectures) really is incredible. A common quote here is "trying to get a drink of water out of a gushing fire hydrant." I can see that Anatomy will definitely need some attention on my part - the vocabulary and subtleties involved get pretty complex.
Some of the terminology (especially gross anatomical terms like prone, midsaggital plane, anterior/posterior) I am familiar with because of my EMT training. I am very grateful for this, because I can see that some of my classmates will struggle with these terms. In Anatomy, you can't say "look at that muscle above the belly button" or "that artery is closer to the shoulder." Good terminology would be "look at that muscle anterior to the umbilicus" or "that artery is just lateral to the shoulder." At this point, I'll take whatever leg up I can get!
A large group of first and second year medical students went tubing down the James River yesterday - everyone was having a great time until the skies opened up on us. Then the thunder and lightning came, and we had to seek shelter on the shore, probably 2 miles away from the end of our trip. We all got pretty cold (after all, we didn't have much of anything that was dry), and some girls' lips even started to turn blue. Those girls got first priority at the little bit of shelter we found under an abandoned house. The sign near us marking "Trigger Happy Lane" wasn't too reassuring either - we laughed at comments about horror movies. Thankfully, a man came out to us from his RV and said he would call the tubing company to pick us up. That was really nice - we would really have been in a tough spot without his help!! Still, we all had a blast.
Last night I saw the Girl Talk free concert at John Paul Jones (Basketball arena) - UVA put it on to celebrate first year (undergraduate) move-in day. It is just one guy who mixes between 3-5 songs together in a hybrid. Really pretty amazing - his "Jump" (Van Halen) and "Shout" mix was a hit.
Tomorrow we have our first quiz in Embryology. Some of my friends are really getting nervous about it. I am pretty grateful that the first 2 years are all pass/fail. Getting a 70% and getting a 95% get you the same result - a Pass. That takes a huge load off of the pressure, and everyone is working pretty well together to help each other out. Plus, this quiz is only 5% of our Anatomy grade (our 2 CTS exams are about 35-40% each!!) A classmate of mine already sent out flash cards with the learning objectives and answers. Well, back to the grind. I'll let you know how the class does!
Some of the terminology (especially gross anatomical terms like prone, midsaggital plane, anterior/posterior) I am familiar with because of my EMT training. I am very grateful for this, because I can see that some of my classmates will struggle with these terms. In Anatomy, you can't say "look at that muscle above the belly button" or "that artery is closer to the shoulder." Good terminology would be "look at that muscle anterior to the umbilicus" or "that artery is just lateral to the shoulder." At this point, I'll take whatever leg up I can get!
A large group of first and second year medical students went tubing down the James River yesterday - everyone was having a great time until the skies opened up on us. Then the thunder and lightning came, and we had to seek shelter on the shore, probably 2 miles away from the end of our trip. We all got pretty cold (after all, we didn't have much of anything that was dry), and some girls' lips even started to turn blue. Those girls got first priority at the little bit of shelter we found under an abandoned house. The sign near us marking "Trigger Happy Lane" wasn't too reassuring either - we laughed at comments about horror movies. Thankfully, a man came out to us from his RV and said he would call the tubing company to pick us up. That was really nice - we would really have been in a tough spot without his help!! Still, we all had a blast.
Last night I saw the Girl Talk free concert at John Paul Jones (Basketball arena) - UVA put it on to celebrate first year (undergraduate) move-in day. It is just one guy who mixes between 3-5 songs together in a hybrid. Really pretty amazing - his "Jump" (Van Halen) and "Shout" mix was a hit.
Tomorrow we have our first quiz in Embryology. Some of my friends are really getting nervous about it. I am pretty grateful that the first 2 years are all pass/fail. Getting a 70% and getting a 95% get you the same result - a Pass. That takes a huge load off of the pressure, and everyone is working pretty well together to help each other out. Plus, this quiz is only 5% of our Anatomy grade (our 2 CTS exams are about 35-40% each!!) A classmate of mine already sent out flash cards with the learning objectives and answers. Well, back to the grind. I'll let you know how the class does!
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
The Hip Bone's Connected to the... Sacrum?
Yeah - title's a bad anatomy joke. Sorry, I'll try to get more clever.
Yesterday we started Cells and Tissue Structure (CTS). Talk about a rough 2 hours. The lecturer moved pretty fast through some "basic" material involving sequestration and post-translational modification of secreted proteins. That's quite a mouthful, and something that I wasn't too good with back when I saw a brief overview of it in undergrad bio. Also doesn't help that my cellular biology knowledge is basically non-existent (at least compared to some of my classmates). Darn you Econ major! Guess I'll have to work a bit harder...
Today we got to have our first time in the anatomy lab. Funny aside - we have to wear some sort of eye protection in the lab, and I forgot my goggles. Good thing they have extras, because my partner and I literally were ready to wear sunglasses as our eye protection. At least I would have been stylish in the lab. Our cadaver isn't as large as I thought - although washing it head to toe took quite a while.
The amount of information being thrown at us can definitely be viewed as a bit overwhelming. It's looking like I'll have to hit up the library (which is much nicer than the undergrad ones!) after class to do some review of the day's material. I'm definitely not alone there, but I'm definitely not used to having to do this much work. I want to try to stay with it as much as I can, it would probably be pretty bad if I fell behind. Speaking of which, I need to review CTS and biochem for tomorrow. More later.
Yesterday we started Cells and Tissue Structure (CTS). Talk about a rough 2 hours. The lecturer moved pretty fast through some "basic" material involving sequestration and post-translational modification of secreted proteins. That's quite a mouthful, and something that I wasn't too good with back when I saw a brief overview of it in undergrad bio. Also doesn't help that my cellular biology knowledge is basically non-existent (at least compared to some of my classmates). Darn you Econ major! Guess I'll have to work a bit harder...
Today we got to have our first time in the anatomy lab. Funny aside - we have to wear some sort of eye protection in the lab, and I forgot my goggles. Good thing they have extras, because my partner and I literally were ready to wear sunglasses as our eye protection. At least I would have been stylish in the lab. Our cadaver isn't as large as I thought - although washing it head to toe took quite a while.
The amount of information being thrown at us can definitely be viewed as a bit overwhelming. It's looking like I'll have to hit up the library (which is much nicer than the undergrad ones!) after class to do some review of the day's material. I'm definitely not alone there, but I'm definitely not used to having to do this much work. I want to try to stay with it as much as I can, it would probably be pretty bad if I fell behind. Speaking of which, I need to review CTS and biochem for tomorrow. More later.
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