This past month of February has been eye opening. We have our routine down and are getting into the thick of things. Everyone has figured their own way to stay productive and on top of things. Some people do a lot of group studying, whereas I have found that I have to force myself to go the medical library to study, otherwise I'll get distracted in my apartment. It has worked out well so far, for everybody I believe. Our exams are extremely tough, but fair, and everyone has been doing well lately. I sort of forget what sleep is, until I wake up and don't want to get out of bed. As an avid coffee disliker ("Is this guy crazy?"...possibly, but not because of this) I have turned desperate to get up in those early mornings and have turned to drinking tea, which is so not me. But I am always up late studying most nights and need a little bit of help in the morning these days. My advice is to not sacrifice sleep in order to cram for an exam, though. You're better off being alert for the exam and focusing on what you know.
Classes have been going routinely and we know what to expect now:
Anatomical techniques: The past couple of weeks we have been talking about how to gross specific tissues and how to dictate specimens. I really enjoy this because this is exactly why we came here. It's basically job training. We started off by learning about simple biopsies and went into specimens like gallbladders, appendixes, eyes, and the spleen. It can be difficult to learn these because there are so many variations on how to dictate something, but we are given a lot of practice so far and it starts to catch on. I feel like at this point, the next time I go in to do my gross room rotation, I will feel so much more comfortable than the first time. I am really looking forward to doing my next rotation to solidify some of these skills that we've been learning. We also had a lab that is associated with this class. This is the first year they are doing this and i found it to be very beneficial. We went to the morgue and received pig GI sections and gallbladders to practice inking, cutting, and making appropriately sized sections to put into cassettes. I had fun doing it and learned so much. We had an exam in this class yesterday, and even though we haven't received our exams yet, I feel like I do sooo much better than the first exam.
Anatomy: A couple of weeks ago the topic was head and neck. I found this topic to be pretty difficult because the larynx and pharynx seem pretty complicated to me. I had to work hard to understand these concepts. In cadaver lab, we dissected the neck muscles and some of the face muscles. We eventually ended up taking out the pharynx by physically grabbing the trachea and pulling it out. It was pretty intense! One cadaver had the face bisected into so we could see the cavities and structures in the mouth.
Lately we have been working on the thoracic cavity. We are getting into the swing of things and talking about organs, specifically the heart and lungs. The pathology that these organs can be involved in are incredibly interesting and I love to learn the mechanisms behind them. In the cadaver lab, we took off the thoracic plate to reveal the cavity. We then followed all of the major arteries and veins that intervene with the heart. We dissected the lungs out of the body and then the heart. It was so cool and such a privilege to be able to hold these organs. We were then each provided a fixed (supposedly) pig heart! I say supposedly, because mine turned out to be kind of fresh once we cut into it and it didn't have the best smell to it. Each group was guided in cutting into the hearts so we could see inside of it. We know have a large bucket of pigs hearts that are sitting in the cadaver lab for us to study for our exam next week.
Histology: This class has been very routine. One week we study the given topic and the next we take the exam. Everyone has been doing really well in this class. We are given notes to study, but make sure you look at the Powerpoints, too. Some information on the exam comes from there, even though it may not be specified.
Mechanisms of Disease: Just like I thought at the beginning, this class requires a lot of my studying time, but at least it's really interesting. Each chapter is usually taught by somebody different, so that adds a little bit of variety, too. We have been talking about different genetic and autoimmune disorders. Now we are just starting the chapter about cancer. This is going to be very extensive and involves multiple lectures.
On top of class, we have been attending conferences in the morning. Sometimes the material is wayyy over our heads, but lately we have been understanding more and more as time goes on. Some of my classmates are on their second rotation in the gross room (I'm jealous). A lot of classmates also attending a charity bowl painting event. Other blogs have more info on this, but I heard it was a lot of fun and for a good cause. I was unfortunately getting my car fixed. Which brings me to my next topic: adulting. It is hard to find time to do the normal adult things like shopping, dealing with finances, etc, but don't worry. You will find these small breaks after a string of exams where you can spend a night catching up on these things (or have time to write your blog).
One last thing. Your classmates are everything. They are a lifeline you can lean on for help, company, or for a good laugh. You won't find this funny right now, but if you get to where we are at, you will. We were waiting for a class to start and someone found a random piece of a brown, circular piece of chocolate. It didn't have any markings on it to indicate what we thought it might be (M&M, Reeses Pieces, Trail Mix, Skittle etc). So we all tried to guess what it was. Someone bisected the "specimen" like we were taught in class and you could hear a pin drop. It sounded crunchy kind of like a Skittle, so were all surprised when it revealed to be peanut butter, and we all died laughing in surprise! It's the silly little things like this that give you that relief of stress you need. We may have been slap-happy as well, due to being in the middle of a string of exams. Get to know your classmates and enjoy them. We are all in this together.
