Cardiovascular Physiology

We're already a week into the semester. Not to worry, I'm feeling overwhelmed and behind on my studying already. It really is incredible how much information scientists know about the way our bodies function. It's less incredible when you try to stuff all of that information into your tiny little brain and comprehend it all though! Yikes.

In honor of all of our ECG lectures for the past week, I thought this picture fit perfectly! Just a little medical school humor for you...

P wave, QRS complex, T wave: I'm not sure that they are appropriately spaced.
Perhaps there's a bit of pathology present...?

Admittedly, most of the people reading my blog probably won't understand why that lovely little diagram is funny, but it made me smile and really that's what counts, right? It actually is pretty accurate as to how the semester flows as far as cramming, sleep and the studying lull in the few days between the beginning of a new unit and when you pick up the results from the previous exam. 

During our lectures on Friday we covered hemostasis (the process of blood clotting and anti-clotting for wound healing). Towards the end of one of the lectures our professor referenced two pages of "in a nutshell" diagrams and said, "This is all I want you to know about platelets. Is it too much? Probably." Oh, thanks. That's it? Don't worry, we've just spent the past two hours going over every single nitty gritty detail about platelet aggregation and you can just conveniently condense all of that information into 11 diagrams. I'll just memorize every single letter on each of these pages, no biggie. In actuality, it was pretty funny when he said that. At least our professors have a sense of humor! 

Unfortunately this picture isn't large
enough to be able to see all 150 billion details
that I should be memorizing. But you get the gist... 

Just the second page of "nutshell" information.
This "nut" must be stinking huge if the shell is this in-depth!

Our professor, a vegetarian, also spent a bit of time telling us about how beneficial omega fatty acids (found in fish) are for the body to reduce the incidence of heart disease. Well, I pride myself on being healthy, so I just had to have fish for dinner on Friday. And obviously it couldn't just be any type of fish, but it had to be sushi (Japanese people have a low prevalence of heart attacks because of the sushi they consume!). As I was oh-so-conveniently in Hastings for dinner, I convinced my parents to take me out to dinner (not having to pay for sushi makes it taste all the better! Clearly I'm not a spoiled only child at all....) at a sushi restaurant in Grand Island. It was absolutely delicious, as most sushi is! 

I swear it was all in the name of good heart health though... 

Don't fret Dr. Mehta, I plan to have a super healthy ticker for the remainder of my life! 

Now that my heart is in tip-top shape, I'm off to do some work on my brain and catch up on lectures!