Procrastination Leads to Increased Blogging, Study Shows

Well, I'm in the brand new, hideously modern wing of the old library (I know, it seems paradoxical to me too), trying to convince myself to do work. I have midterms coming up in a couple of weeks, and the old me would insist on leaving everything to the night before (I am not giving my old study habits enough credit. I guess I normally started two or three days before, and it paid off pretty well.), the new and improved keener me wants to get a handle on everything really early and be fabulously organized to boot. The likelihood of this actually happening is slim. But at least I'm here, away from the distractions of home, trying to focus. Unformtunately, I brought my laptop to type my notes up on, and everywhere on campus is within range of UBC's extensive wireless network. So my internet access is unaffected, and thus, I am posting. Huzzah!

I had my first family practice experience the other day, and it was amazing! My preceptor is the most outgoing, energetic, informative person I've ever met. Most FP visits in first year last 3 hours, and the first time you go to the office, apparently most people sort of act as shadows, silently following the GP around. Not so for me! My partner and I were thrown right in, we took histories, got blood pressure measurements (a tricky skill which is steadily getting easier for me), and answered a barrage of questions which the doctor threw our way. I must say, my brain contains far more information about healthcare than I'd expected. We talked about everything from Parkinsons to likely causes of death for a 54 year old male to the well child program to hepatitis A, B and C. And we did this for, not three, not four, but at least five hours (longer, because we did some ear exams on each other after to office closed and before we went home)! I learned more about interacting with patients in that short period than I've learned in the rest of my life! It was an excellent, thoroughly enjoyable experience, and I'm looking forward to next week (I might get to give some vaccinations soon, as flu season is coming up!).

Otherwise, nothing terribly new to report. I suck ass at poker, but that shouldn't be news to anyone. Jon, on the other hand, kicked some considerable ass on Monday. Huzzah! Again!

Reasons to Stop Smoking

I almost forgot: we removed the anterior ribs from our cadaver today and pulled out the lungs. Some people had absolutely gorgeous specimens, pink, pristine, fairly heavy, densely spongy with clearly defined lobes and nicely intact pleura. Our cadaver had massively swollen, deeply discoloured (basically black with particulates from some form of air pollution...smoking? city living? dunno) masses which were fused to his thoracic wall in multiple places. The lobes seemed to be completely grown together, the lung tissue itself was very spongy, but not densly so. It literally felt like one of those sponges you use to clean your dishes, very little mass to it. One of the lab techs came over and commented that the guy probably had very bad emphysema and likely had major breathing issues.

Nevertheless, it was very cool to get to see the inside of the chest. We're looking at the heart and surrounding tissues next week. We couldn't even see it this week, as it's encased in the mediastinum (a membranous structure which lies between the right and left lungs). We did get to see the exterior of the aorta though...it's huge! The walls are so thick that it is self-supporting, i.e., it is a rigid, tubular structure even when there's no fluid to hold it open, unlike the vast majority of arteries. It reminded me of a thick, plasticized cable...something you'd find in a machine, not a person. Hard to believe something so strong could ever rupture...but then, the pressure of blood passing through it must be phenomenal.

: , a med school odyssey

I can't believe we're three weeks into this semester already! There's so much information I have to learn! So many obscure and unweildy structures whose names and functions I have to know. So many polysyllabic words that must somehow be slotted into my memory banks. I think I really should be focusing on organization right now. Let the memory stuff come later, as long as this vast amount of material is arranged into a sensible, logical pattern. I need to focus on how everything interrelates and why, rather than trying to study things in isolation. This is something of a shift for me...I've always studied stuff in stand-alone chunks before. It's taking a little bit of getting used to.

On the other hand, it's amazing how well all this stuff is sticking in my head. Anatomy, histology, pathology, pharmacology, physiology, on both gross and microscopic levels, are all coming together for me. There's a ton of stuff I still need to go over, but what has been reviewed is already pretty solid. Hopefully I can keep on top of it.

It's been a busy week...over the weekend I taught some Kaplan courses, on Monday, I went to the poker night Jon blogged about elsewhere (did pretty well...I flatter myself that I might have placed 3rd out of 9...not bad for my first semi-serious attempt). Tuesday was A's birthday party (big 25!), so Jon and I missed game night to hit the Wolf and Hound and consume copious amounts of Guinness and port and play pool with a great group of peoples. Wednesday I (of necessity) did laundry. Thursday I taught again. Tonight is my evening off before I get to spend the weekend working at M.B. again. Somehow I managed to fit 4-5 hours of research for PBL, 3-4 hours of reading various assignments, a few hours of studying anatomy in as well, despite having class every day, usually for 8 hours. No wonder I feel a little drained. It's not so tough getting to bed at 11-12 at night if you've got to wake up at 6 the next morning once or twice a week, but five days running...ick.

I'd love nothing more than to be all witty and insightful in this post, but I'm a little drained, so I appologize. Oh wait, here's something cool:

I walked into the gigantic atrium of the Life Sciences building today (and by gigantic, I mean huge...4 stories high...god knows how long...bah, measurement sucks) and found it filled with a gigant, pink colon. You know those big inflated bouncy castles and velcro walls and things...basically cloth with air being pumped in? Now imagine one of those big castles, but pink and tubular and...well...colon-like. And this was a big colon. The lumen of this sucker was large enough for several people to walk abreast in. I was somewhat perplexed by the thing until I noticed so little polyps growing out the side of it, and then, as I rounded the protruding appendix, I can face to face with a little sign talking about colorectal cancer and advising people that tours of the colon were available and would take 5 minutes. How cool is that? I hope next week we have a giant nephron or auditory canal or something.

Mmmmph...

It is 7:30 a.m., and I have been awake and active since 6. This whole getting up early in the morning thing is very very challenging. I seem to always be tired, and it can be difficult not to fall asleep in lectures (particularly those following lunch...fortunately most classes at that time of day are highly interactive and keep me alert). I am hopeing that once I get settled in, and once I get over this dratted lingering cold I seem to have developed, and once I get my eating habits back on track and maybe start some kind of excercise program, I'll find myself with more energy. This sounds great in theory, but where am I supposed to get the energy to do all this from initially? Bah.

There's really surprisingly little new to report since my last update. I suppose I could go on for a bit about my classes, but the truth is, most of them are still sort of in the introductory stages. We're learning about genetics this week...it's mostly stuff I have seen before. My anatomy lab continues to be fascinating. Last friday, we used a chisel to crack through some thoracic verterbrae and access the spinal cord. I was a little leery of chiselling through bones (some groups got to use power bone saws, but we decided to rough it), but everything else was great. This week we flip our cadavers over and go in through the ribs I believe...though I may be getting ahead of myself.

Apparently I get to start going out to a family practitioner's office the week after next and helping out with patients. They've divided us into two groups, those who go out earlier, and those who go out later. I'd rather be in the latter group, to be honest, because I know nothing about medicine yet and will feel a little out of place in a doctor's office. Apparently I may be asked (in fact, SHOULD be asked) to help with standard procedures...history taking, physical exams, etc. I'll have a grand total of four hours of training in preparation for this. Oh great.

My Baby's Here!

Well, I thought this day would never come, but my sweet little laptop is finally home! I picked it up this morning from the Purolator outlet downtown, along with my new printer. It is very exciting...all silver and white and new with DVD players and CD burners and other snazzy things like that! Honestly, that's all I need, something to watch my movies on, listen to my music (and burn new CDs) on, type up reports on, and surf the net with. Apparently the processor is crap, and the ram is puny, but I don't care because now, if Jon wants to watch Samurai Jack and I want to watch the Muppet Show we can do it! AT THE SAME TIME!

I'm not sure if I'll be able to hook it up to the internet at home, nor am I sure I'll want to. I do have to bring it into school with me and get it all set up for wireless. It will be supremely handy to be able to do my PBL research where ever I want!

Speaking of PBL research...that's what I ought to be doing right now. I under-researched my stuff for Wednesday way too mcuh, so I'm over researching the stuff I need for tomorrow. Lots of stress and pregnancy and dental protocols and drug specs. Six packed pages of notes so far...and I think I'm done. Just need to check and see what proper procedures are for cracked teeth at your neighbourhood dentist's office. This stuff is kind of fun actually, it's really nice to be able to look at clinical applications of all this new information. Hopefully I'll be able to remember at least some of it.

Anyways, tonight I get to go look at stethoscopes and other diagnostic equipment...see what I want for myself. Hey everyone, wanna volunteer for chest and ENT exams? I'll need lots of practice!

Here we are again.

I'm typing this from the gigantic multimedia lab in the Life Sciences Building, waiting for my first Anatomy lab to begin. I only have 15 minutes before it starts, and I think I have to get changed first (I hear it can get a little messy), so I will keep this brief.

Orientation is over, and today I had my first real PBL session, followed by my first ever lecture in Med school! It was all about embryology, and mostly consisted of my using various coloured pens to denote various layers of tissue. I enjoyed it really, because it tied in very nicely with my PBL case this morning, which dealt with a pregnant woman, x weeks along, who wanted to know what her baby looked like at this stage. I've got some homework now...researching more fetal devlopment, looking into how doctors determine conception and birth dates, general physiology of pregnancy etc etc. This is all quite exciting....I keep waiting for my enthusiasm to wear off. Hopefully it won't.

There was a med/dental student surprise event a while ago...Wednesday I guess. We had this icebreaking activity which basically involved tracking down our fellow classmates based on their accomplishments. We got a list of things to look for: blackbelt in karate, climbed mt Kilimanjaro, conceived at a drive in movie, owns 3 cats etc etc, and we had to find one person who had done or was each of those things. I had one of the few degrees in Music there, and so was firly popular. It was a great time, and when we had filled out our lists, we got tickets for the party at the new locations (the Roxy). I wound up heading for home though, to sleep, take care of Jon, and relax.

Anyways, tonight we have a concert to go to, Jon and I. Ted Leo and the Pharmacists are in town! And tomorrow, it's off to the island for me! Here's to an eventful weekend!