P=MD

Once again, lots to update yall on. Lets go in order of most interesting this time instead of chronologically (just to be different)

So.... school just got a lot harder. We had quiz 2 today, and it was significantly more difficult than quiz 1. Histology (cell bio) wasn't bad, probably because I've sent quite a bit of time looking at blood cells through a microscope (thank you summer internship). Doctoring and Anatomy were ok, but not great (if you didn't see my colorful brachial plexus on FB, you should. For those who don't know, the brachial plexus is a big tangle of nerves in your in that little triangle below your collar bone/between your shoulder and your arm pit. It was really interesting to dissect on Stanley last week because his had a "variation" where some of his nerves joined back together, mixed their fibers up and then split apart again.) Biochem and Physiology pretty much kicked my butt, hopefully I passed them. Can I just say, there are these molecules called "glycoaminoglycans" (or GAGs) and I hate them. First of all, why is "amino" in your name if you DONT CONTAIN NITROGEN? wtf. I hope all GAGS die a slow and tedious death (just like we all would if we didnt have any GAGs).

Today we finished dissecting the flexor forearm, and then dissected the hand. The had was a little weird, for whatever reasons the fingernails kind of creeped me out. Our hands are a really human part of us. It's easy to ignore the fact that Stanley's an actual person when his head is all wrapped up and we're just digging around in a shoulder or something. But it's a lot harder to ignore his human-ness when you're literally holding his hand open so someone can cut the skin off the palm. The had was also really cool. There are two main muscles in the forearm (the flexor digitorum superficialis and flexor digitorum profundus if you wanted to know their names) which flex our finger joints (the metacarpopharangeal joint, proximal pharageal joint and distal pharangeal joint). The muscles are in the forearm, and their tendons run through the carpel tunnel (with the median nerve which, fun fact is what gets compressed and causes pain in "carpel tunnel syndrome"), then the tendons spread out and one runs to each finger (except the thumb, which has its own little party). So the highlight of lab today was dissecting out each tendon and then pulling on it to make his fingers bend. like little one fingered waves. 

One last thing, I worked at a clinic on Saturday that specializes in serving IV drug users. Saw a really interesting patient who came in with full body tremors. Her father has parkinsons so she was really concerned that she could be showing early signs of the disease as well. She was an interesting case because, while she needed some physical treatment, she mostly wanted to be reassured that she didn't have early onset parkinsons. It was a really good reminder of the human side of medicine, that we're ultimately treating people, not fixing machines :) Which is a REALLY nice reminder as I crammed for an exam. Unfortunately this clinic runs in the afternoons, which kind of kills my saturday study time so I probably won't volunteer there very often. I'll stick with the morning clinics.

So, TLDR; Schools a little overwhelming at the moment, but its still amazing :) I got a dead guys fingers to wiggle. And I'm counting down the days (3 more!) until I can go hang out with trees in the mountains :)

PS- the title of my post, P=MD is our saying, reminding ourselves that to become doctors (MDs) all we need to do is pass!