Pre-exam preparations

I'm sure that you're all dying to know about what I do to prepare for my exams. Well beyond the obvious answer of study, study, study, study, study, study, study, study and study more, we've actually started a few pre-exam traditions! Whether they truthfully are all that helpful or not is probably debatable, but there is at least a grain or two of physiologic support for these rituals.

On Thursday nights we eat pasta. Carbo-loading is something that is quite common in athletes so they have enough of a store of energy for a big meet/match/game, so why not do it for our very own logic workout?! This week I added a bit of pesto, Alfredo sauce and sauteed vegetables (red pepper, mushroom and Swiss chard) to my pasta. It was absolutely delicious! 

Pre-exam Friday nights are sushi nights. We're trying out the local sushi restaurants to decide which is our favorite, but so far we've had good experiences at the two places we've frequented. The fish gives us some Omega fatty acids to help us think too. Tonight I actually ordered a Bento box. I had miso soup, teriyaki salmon, a California roll and several tempura-ed things (shrimp, broccoli, mushrooms, zucchini, etc). It was DELICIOUS! 

Truthfully, these two rituals are the most exciting part of the week leading up to the test--arguably the most exciting thing that happens throughout the entire 2-3 weeks we are studying a particular unit. 

Friday nights we also spend reviewing living anatomy (it's exactly what it sounds like...finding the anatomy of living people). This unit is all about head and neck, so the living portion of the exam will include: cranial nerve testing; muscle testing for the extraoccular muscles, muscles of mastication, muscles of facial expression, supra- and infrahyoid muscles, and other muscles of the neck (including intrinsic laryngeal and pharyngeal muscles); cervical plexus and brachial plexus nerve testing; and looking in ears, eyes, noses, and mouths. It should be pretty sweet. I also review slides from embryology on Friday nights. We get questions about different embryological derivates of tissue, times at which different structures emerge and what could go wrong if the genetic programs don't function properly. Embryology is a really sad class because we spend so much time learning about everything that can go wrong and never hear about the things that go right. This class has made me absolutely terrified of becoming pregnant and having children (the fourth week of pregnancy is a seriously big deal....holy goodness!). But that decision will be made much further down on the road of life. Creating and growing a human is an absolute miracle!! 

The great news for tonight is that I FINALLY understand the arteries of the face and neck. Truthfully they aren't too difficult, but I could not wrap my mind around them for the past two weeks. Luckily, it all 'clicked' tonight and I'm hoping that it stays that way for the exam too! The trouble with the arterial system (the venous system is the worst offender at this though...far worse than the arteries!) is that they are variable. The body we are dissecting has his arteries branching in a non-traditional manner, yet they aren't so non-traditional that they are an anomaly (something that happens in less than 15% of people is considered an anomaly for our intents and purposes). But then if I go to another body, they'll branch differently as well. So confusing and frustrating for me...until now! Here's a (fairly) simply diagram of the arteries of the head and neck, just so you can get a visual picture of it.

One of the craziest things is that arteries anastomose (reconnect/join other arteries) with arteries that are from the same major trunks and from different major trunks. And then they also anastomose across the face and neck--don't forget you do have two of almost everything! They do all of this so that no area of the face, neck, brain is ever without a blood supply even if one artery gets clogged or something. 

Isn't the body just so cool? Well anyway, my pre-exam preparations always conclude with a full night's sleep, so I'm off for now! 

Duh, welcome to medical school

Well, as it turns out, I could have done a billion times better on the practical tonight (it's not graded, it's just to give us an idea about where we're at) if I would have actually studied a few areas a bit better--or at all. Now I quite easily understand the relationship between the auditory canal, tarus tubarius and the salpingopharyngeal fold and muscle. Obviously those terms mean nothing to many of you (and truthfully they are in an eeentsy little area near the junction of the nose and the mouth), but they make a thousand times more sense to me right now after spending 5 minutes looking at them in a dissecting guide than they did earlier tonight. Who woulda thunk that studying actually helps!?!

Wow, such deep and wonderful insights tonight. Clearly I need to get my head out of a book more frequently or else I may lose my common sense altogether! Here ends my late night ramblings. Until another day.

Long time, no post.

So it's been a while since my last post. It's test week, so I'm not going to take the time right now to fill you in on everything, but here's a little glimpse into what I've been doing today.

Facial nerve (cranial nerve 7) branches starting in the brain and going to their respective locations. Also, there's a bit of trigeminal nerve (cranial nerve 5) thrown in there.

This is the path of the glossopharyngeal nerve (cranial nerve 9). It seems less scary than the facial nerve because there are fewer branches; however, it still has motor, general sensory, parasympathetic and sympathetic fibers throughout its course. 

Pterygopalatine ganglion. One of my least favorite ganglia (collection of nerve cell bodies outside the Central Nervous System). 

Welp, that's basically what I've been doing with my life. Tonight we also had a practice practical to prepare us for this weekend's exam. I didn't do so well tonight, so I'll be spending more time in the lab tomorrow! Look for a longer post sometime this weekend when I will have more than a few minutes to spare for blog writing.

LCE

Today was my first long-term clinical experience (LCE) visit. Basically I am paired with a local practitioner (in my case, a pediatrician) for the next two years. I need to make 5 visits a semester with him at the clinic. It's designed to get us into the clinic to see patients (you know, the whole reason all of us wanted to be doctors in the first place) right from the get go.

So I really can't say much about the patients or anything that happened this afternoon, but it was a wonderful visit! We had one particular moment that was absolutely hysterical though that I can share. We were doing a Kindergarten check-up on a 5-year-old boy and the doctor was asking him a few questions to determine where he was developmentally.

Doctor: "What's your address?"
Boy: "Ummm, I don't know."
Doctor: "Do you know what city you live in?"
Boy: "I don't remember."
Doctor: "It starts with 'O'."
Boy: "O-merica!"

It was absolutely adorable! Go 'Merica! Needless to say, the little boy eventually remembered that he lived in Omaha, so the doctor determined that he was okay.

Such a wonderful visit and a great reminder about why I'm going to school for seemingly forever. Adios for now.

Happy Birthday to me!

Well, today is my birthday. I am officially a 22 year old. I guess that's old, but I don't really feel that much is different from yesterday. Maybe that's because I'm amidst the medical school grind. Oh and probably because I'm still one of the youngest (maybe the youngest actually, I have yet to meet someone younger!) in my class.

Today is a really good day. Not only did I get to hear from a gaggle of my friends and family, but I also got to...

1. Hold a real HUMAN brain!!!!
2. Eat my mom's homemade carrot cake. I'm really not sure that there is a better cake in existence.  
3. Begin dance classes at a local dance studio! It's been 4 years since I've consistently taken classes at a studio, so I was nervous to begin. I've really missed dancing since HC dance team ended in February, so it was nice to be back at it. The class wasn't as challenging as I expected, but dancing is still dancing. Tonight was lyrical and tomorrow will be jazz.
4. Wear my special cupcake necklace that is for birthday celebrations only! A local artist made it and my best friend Laura gave it to me a few years ago for my birthday present. I absolutely adore it! 
5. Go out for ice cream with my wonderful roommate. But she lost some roomie points because she was a jerk and put my gift in this bag: 

For those of you who don't know, I'm absolutely terrified of squirrels.  No seriously, I HATE them. Of course the running joke is always to get me squirrel-related presents, but seriously, on my birthday?!?? Anyway, she made up for it because she got me an AWESOME scarf and beautiful earrings.

So, some of you might not understand why holding a real human brain is so cool, but don't worry. I'm going to tell you my top reasons for why the brain is so freaking awesome. It's seriously incredible, but I think it's even more amazing because it does all of its cool brainy stuff in just 3-5 lbs of weight! I suppose that means that I can't use the excuse that "my brain is getting bigger" while at med school if I put on weight from study-snacking...

Look, even this picture depicts how awesome brains are. Aren't those glasses pretty snazzy? I sure think so!

Okay, but now what y'all have been waiting for...my top reasons the brain is awesome (I don't want to put a numerical limit on my reasons, because I'm sure to find out more as the years progress)!

The brain is awesome because...

1. Your personality is in there. What makes you distinctly YOU resides just above your eyes in the frontal cortex. Scientists (whether neurobiologists or psychologists) don't really even understand how it works...how cool is that!?!
2. It works on electricity. Seriously! Just like the stuff that comes out of the wall. Except I don't suggest that you add any additional external electricity to your brain because electrocution is a bad deal. Plus the body makes its own based on ion gradients (yay, biochem!).
3. It sends out cells to receive sensory information throughout your whole body (light touch, sharp touch, pain, proprioception), BUT it doesn't even have its own sensory cells! Once you get beyond the nerves of the bone and meninges (3 protective layers over brain and spinal cord), the brain doesn't actually "feel" anything. That's the reason why patients can stay awake during brain surgery! 
4. The brain processes things seriously quickly. We have some incredible computing ability up there and usually it goes faster than any machine that humans have built to date. 
5. All of your muscles work because of electrical signals (more electricity) sent from the brain. Think about how complex the motion of waving goodbye is... (1) Visualizing person to say goodbye to, (2) Processing thought "I want to say goodbye," (3) Raising arm at shoulder joint, extending forearm, making 'bye-bye' motion with fingers and wrist involvement, lowering arm, etc. That's a gross oversimplification of the process but you get the idea. AND there are a bunch of muscles involved in each of those actions that are even given their signal (innervation) by different nerves. All of those things have to go right for us to do even something as simple as waving. 
6. You don't have to think of automatic processes like breathing, blinking, temperature control, digesting, etc. Interestingly, you can also control some of these processes consciously too. 
7. The brain doesn't sleep. Even while your body catches some Zzzs the brain is processing and organizing information and experiences of the previous day(s). AND it is repairing itself (within reason) throughout all of that.
8. Speaking of sleep....dreams. Those are some crazy things. 
9. You have memories. We don't even realize that we remember most of the things that we do!
10. The brain is also controlled by chemicals. These chemicals work with the electricity to send signals to other parts of the body. Lots of diseases/disorders arise because of an imbalance of these chemicals. 

Okay, 10 reasons will be enough for today. I probably should actually do some studying. Surprisingly, the professors didn't give me the day off even though it's my birthday ;) (kidding, I never expected them to). 

Thank you to everyone who made this day extra special! I am seriously overwhelmed by the love and support I have felt today from all of you. Here's to another great year! 

Head and Neck: Day 1

So this might be a little gruesome, but today we finally looked at the face of our cadaver. Truthfully, it wasn't as hard as I thought it would be because the skin (the most distinctly personal and identity-tied part of the body) didn't stay on for too long. But moving on to the less gross parts of my day... We looked at the muscles, nerves and arteries of the face, which are pretty cool things. The facial expression muscles are ridiculous! But if you think about it, we communicate with our non-verbals so frequently and most of that communication occurs with our facial expressions.

Over the lunch hour we had a meeting for the Pediatric Interest Group (PIG). A Child Life specialist from the hospital came over to talk to us about the hospital buddies program. You can watch a little about the program here. It was really emotional for me when I was learning about the program because it reminded me so much of my Memphis kiddos (one of the young girls looked IDENTICAL to one of my CHC kiddos). During the presentation, I had an overwhelming feeling of missing my good friend Rachel who is also a Child Life specialist. Rachel is quite a bit more energetic than the lady I met today, but few people in the world have as much energy as Rachel does (few people are also as awesome and nice as she is either).

This lady was teaching us about "getting on the child's level" so that you're not talking down to the child. I started giggling because I remember messing with Rachel and moving up, down, left and right while talking to her. She would adjust her level without even realizing and we would just laugh. It was evil, but oh-so-funny at the same time. I miss Rachel very, very much and think of her often. I hope that she and Bo are doing well and I know that her kiddos at Le Bonheur absolutely love her! I'm also sure that she's making billions of spiderweb flow charts on sticky notes still. :)

Well, I'm already feeling overwhelmed with the information we were given today in just two short hours of lecture and two hours of lab. I'm off to study! A large cup of coffee and Netter's Atlas of Human Anatomy are calling my name!

A Labor-less weekend

First off, a quick thank you to all of the day laborers that help to provide the goods and services that I all-too-easily take advantage of and forget to be thankful for. I hope that you got some time off this weekend to spend with your respective families. 

I survived my first exam! We won't find out our scores until late this week or the beginning of next week, so who knows how it actually went. It didn't seem too brutal though, which probably means it wasn't my best exam ever. Oh well, no use worrying over it now...it's done and over! 

This weekend I spent time at the lake with friends and also stopped by to see my parents on my way back to school. It was refreshing to see friends and family after a long, tiring week of studying. I drove the jet ski for the first time and my mom even baked a cake for me! Obviously I had a wonderful weekend based solely on those events. I spent so much time gasping for air and clutching my stomach as I laughed hysterically at the boys at the lake. Never a dull moment around them! I am so thankful to the Nevilles for continually inviting me back to spend time with them at their lake house! 

"testosterone-weekend"

This week we start the head and neck unit. I'm guessing that it will be really tough in lab, so please send up positive thought or two my way tomorrow mid-morning. We also learn about universal precautions tomorrow. After about 100 years of teaching HIV prevention education, I think I have a pretty solid understanding of them, so hopefully I don't get bored during that lecture. More updates to follow this week about lab. 

the night before the 1st exam

Tomorrow morning at 7:45 am I will be rolling up to the computer to begin my first medical school exam. I have 2 hours and 10 minutes for the written part and 70 minutes for the practical (45 gross anatomy identification stations, 15 embryology stations, 4 living anatomy stations--my partner also has 4 stations and we have 2 rest stations). So that should be a blast...

Well anyway, I'm taking  a short brain break. Enjoy this photo. I didn't have a caffeine addiction until medical school. But I'm seriously working on one at the moment. I also study-eat like you wouldn't believe. I suppose there are worse ways to cope... :/

Here goes nothing! I'll update further when I'm not cramming embryology (fertilization through the 6th week or so) into my poor mushy, sleepy brain. But for now, I have a hot date with some Starbucks.

HFL football draft

Well, I survived my first week of medical school. It was overwhelming, scary, busy, and so much fun (in a nerdy sort of way). It is also the most difficult thing I've ever done. Yikes, I am seriously drained. I've actually been going to bed between 10:30-11 pm each night, which I didn't ever think I'd do on a consistent basis. I guess that means I'm officially getting old or something.

This weekend was the Heartland Football League (HFL) draft--the football league that my daddy dearest and his friends are in. The HFL is entering it's 23rd season (or 22nd...? I really don't know, but I guess it doesn't matter for the purpose of this blog post) and it's been a huge part of my life over the years. It was great to see some of the guys whom I haven't seen in a few years and, as always, I love the ever-so-mature trashtalk that accompanies the process.

The draft was something that I didn't realize I needed, but ended up being so refreshing. It reminded me so much of my childhood and brought back several great memories. When I was younger, most of "the guys" lived in or near Hastings, so I saw them quite frequently. Since then many of them have moved away with their families and I have only been able to see them once or twice a year at most. Though many of them aren't physically present in my life anymore, they've made such a big impact on me and they will never leave my heart.

Actually the reason I'm so interested in medicine is because of one of my HFL family members. When I was 8 years old or so, my dad's friend's son was diagnosed with Autism. I remember when my dad told me about the diagnosis and I had so many questions. I wanted to know everything there was to know about Autism and the Autism Spectrum of disorders. I remember, as an 8 year old, looking on the internet and reading different articles about the disorder--yes, I truly have been a nerd my entire life. Anyway, I also remember being upset because of his diagnosis. I thought it was unfair that the general population would look down upon him and think that he was "stupid," "weird," "awkward," etc, because I already knew at that point that he was seriously smart. He can quote tv shows and movies like nobody's business (a skill of which I am seriously jealous), he's involved in swimming and bowling and he's just generally awesome. I do not doubt that he faces several obstacles hourly which I've never even considered, but he is all the smarter for being able to overcome them.

It was throughout this whole process of learning about Autism that I had my first thoughts of wanting to be in the medical profession. Although I'm not sure that I want to specialize with Autism specifically anymore, I hold all of the autistic children and adults that I know very close to my heart. I am glad that we are learning more about this spectrum of disorders and I hope that the research will shed light on them to remove the negative stigma associated with them.

That "little boy" is now 16, a junior in high school and towers over both of his parents (although truthfully I'm not sure how hard this is to accomplish ;) ). His smile still melts my heart whenever I see pictures of him. Although I didn't get to see him this weekend, I caught up with his dad. It was so wonderful to hear all about he and his "baby" sister. Not only that, I realized as I looked around, that each of those men have been supporting and cheering me on from the sidelines for my entire life. They have been as integral to my journey as many of my professors and mentors have. I'm not sure this realization could have come at a more perfect time, really.

Medical school is challenging, as it should be, which I was fully expecting. But it's also still something that you deeply question whether you're actually doing the right thing by being here (or if you're even capable of finishing). I am so glad I had a brief re-energizing reminder of why I dreamed about becoming a doctor all those years ago over this first weekend.

Saturday is our first exam. I am utterly terrified for it, but also looking forward to it being over. I'm planning on spending this long weekend relaxing at the lake (no studying, woohoo!) and spending time with family and friends. After this, I won't have another break until Thanksgiving (gulp!) so I plan to fully take advantage of it.

Until I write again, adios!

Eau de Formaldehyde

Well, I survived the first day of medical school. We had gross anatomy lab for three hours and an hour of embryology lecture. My group didn't finish our dissection within the allotted 3 hours so we had to go back for 2 more.

And now, I am studying, studying, studying. Oh, and studying some more. Well I suppose one could argue that right now I'm writing a blog, but it's just because I need a quick brain break from studying.

Tomorrow is going to be a long day...classes and/or meetings from 7:45 am-4 pm. Yikes. I guess there's nothing like just throwing yourself into something head first.

I apologize in advance to everyone I encounter over the next 10 weeks. I will most definitely smell like formaldehyde and there's absolutely nothing I can do about it. I suppose you can either enjoy my fragrant company or just avoid me until Thanksgiving(ish) time!

9 days until test days...