Wednesday was another class meeting. It always seems like they manage to take a full day to get across maybe a half-hour of new information and re-hash maybe another hour of old information. I'm still not sure where all the time goes.
WednesdayIL: Fourth year is going to be pretty chill (assuming I survive to see it). We learned about the flexibility and inflexibility of our schedules. Depending on what we want to do for residency, there are certain tracks we have to take that consist of a sub-internship (in either medicine, surgery, or pediatrics) and two of three core clerkships (emergency medicine, intensive care, and radiology). We then fill up our schedule with electives according to unnecessarily complicated rules regarding maintaining a balance of clinical vs. non-clinical, face-to-face vs. online, and school affiliate vs. away rotations. Of course, each course is only offered during certain of the ten month-long blocks. It makes me long for the undergrad days of looking through course catalogues and mapping out graduation requirements. Hmmm... I guess that was stupidly complicated too.
Thursday there weren't many patients in the normal geriatric clinic area so my classmate and I shadowed a geriatric urologist for the morning. It was a fun departure from our usual experience.
ThursdayIL: The optimal walker height can be approximated by the level of the wrist when the patient has their arms at their sides. This is lower than most people would intuitively guess, but has been shown to promote the best posture and gait.
Urodynamic studies look at how the bladder handles urine. It works by inserting one pressure-sensing catheter into the bladder and another into the rectum. You then have the patient consume a bunch of fluids and monitor the pressures as the bladder fills. This lets you see if the bladder is able to fill and remain relaxed. Then you have the patient void. This lets you see if the patient uses the bladder muscles or abdominal muscles to urinate. Also you can see if the bladder is able to fully empty. The upshot of all this is by sticking two tubes in uncomfortable places you can learn a lot about someone's bladder function.
TIL: Acute glaucoma (the rapid rise in the pressure of the fluid in the eye) can cause conjunctivitis (redness of the normally white part of the eye). So don't assume that someone with a red eye simply has an infection because if it is glaucoma, they could go blind in that eye without treatment.
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