Look! An update!

Well hello again. I'm not so good at the whole writing blogs thing when I get busy. As you all know I was home for Thanksgiving last week after a tough period involving Psychology, Neurology, Ear Nose Throat, and the usual Pharmacology and Pathology. I did well on my finals considering they were hard. Sometimes I look at the class average to measure my performance but often that makes me depressed and annoyed that my classmates are too smart. I got As and Bs on my tests which feels good and I was above the average , exactly at the average and also below the average on the various tests. Mostly it was just nice to do nothing for a week at home and recover a little.

So now I am in the midst of period 3 involving the exciting bones, joints and connective tissue (yes that is a class), skin, and pharmacology and pathology. This period is 2 weeks long followed by 1 week of finals. So I am already halfway done with the period and really should be studying for finals right now. Unfortunately I find bones joints connective tissue and skin veerrrry boring. But I suppose I must learn. At least I'll be done and on my way home for christmas break shortly.

Though this period should be relatively easy, they have decided to throw a bunch of other stuff at us also. So I am feeling pretty overwhelmed. For one, I started the Internal Medicine rotation of Physician and Patient this past Wednesday. It was my first time in a real hospital with real sick people. They put 2 of us with one patient for the morning where we interview and then examine them. The exam part is a little awkward because they are in a hospital bed and we aren't used to that. Also they don't seem to like being put through an entire exam when it doesn't seem to have any relevance to their condition and takes a long time. Anyway, then we spend a lot of time writing a note on the history and physical that we completed. Then we meet in small groups with a doctor preceptor and do long or short oral presentations on the patient. This is to prepare us for what we will be doing the next 2 years in the hospitals presenting patients to residents and attendings. It is a little scary since it seems they like the presentations to be formal and structured in a particular way and they don't want us to look at our notes. As if we should be able to recite the 10 or more drugs the patient is on including dosage and route off the top of our heads. Perhaps we will be able to do that more when we actually know what the drugs are. I will be on the internal med rotation for the next 3 weeks so I will have more of a chance to get comfortable with the whole thing before next year when I will be thrown into the hospital with little guidance.

Another exciting thing I get to do this next Tuesday is learn how to do a male genital and rectal exam. yippee! Okay I'm not so much looking forward to this but I guess it is something I will have to learn. I get to wait to learn the female one in January at least.

Oh I almost forgot. We also had a field trip this past week where we went to a local college that teaches chiropractics, massage therapy, and other alternative medicines. They are trying to open our minds I think. Mostly it is kind of funny because all the med students listen to them talk about energy and qi and how the person can feel skull bones moving and use that to diagnose problems with their arms crossed and a skeptical look on their face. I think the alternative medicine people speak a different language than us. If they would only speak in terms of physiology and scientific studies we would all understand. One thing they thoroughly convinced me of is the benefits of massage therapy. They gave us all foot massages for 20 minutes and it was wondrous. I certainly wasn't about to let the chiropractors do a neck manipulation on me since we learned that that can cause carotid dissection. Not cool!

Anyway, it will be a busy couple weeks then home for christmas so I'm sure I won't update till January at least. See you all soon!