Histo study nook

Sometimes you just have to get out of your room. Especially when you need your microscope that's stored on the third floor of the Medical Education Building...

These classrooms always have people in them. It's after midnight on Saturday night (Sunday morning) and every room has 2-3 people in it. Except for mine! Maybe I smell or something. I probably scare them away as I dramatically mouth the lyrics to the musical soundtrack I have on in my headphones.

Study Aid #3

I promise: this is the last long weekend we have until Thanksgiving. From here on out, my posts should be more consistent.

I'm happy to have the time though as we have our second histology test and our first histology practical on Monday. We are one of the few medical schools that still uses microscopes and thus one of the few that still has a practical exam for this field. Whether or not that's a good thing is up for debate...

The diagram to the right is my new version of the concept map I made during my post-bacc year, seen below with the overlapping cellular pathways highlighted. We don't (yet) need to know as much as I needed to know for that old class and the pathways we do need to know have either been described slightly differently or discovered to be in fact different in the intervening years. It's nice to have this foundation to build on!

WILTIMS #38: Cheers!

Today was mostly centered on our Community and Preventive Medicine class, which means we covered important but often common sense information. Alcohol is bad. Smoking is bad. Exercise is good. Nutrition is important (though hard to pry out of a patient without eliciting a recall or sample bias).

TIL: Statistically, a given population is better served by an alcohol abuser developing a metastatic cancer than a benign one. It's a rather dark point, but because alcohol is one of the only high risk substances that, on average, does more damage to the people around the abuser than to the abuser his or herself, it's better that he or she develop and die from a more fatal disease than survive to put more people at risk.

An enormous Taiwanese research study showed that 15 minutes of modest exercise a day adds 3 years to a person's life expectancy.

The US Preventive Services Task Force is finalizing a new standard screening test (like colonoscopies and mammograms) for early detection of lung cancer in high risk individuals. As 85% of lung cancer is associated with cigarette smokers, this would be the chief group affected by this recommendation. The test itself would be a low dose CT scan which has been shown effective in finding early stage rumours. Lung cancers have a very poor prognosis, but are much easier to treat if caught early, so this could have a big impact.

WILTIMS #37: In need of an atlas... no the other kind

A drawing from my Netter Atlas of  Human Anatomy

As usual, the day after an intense test we are buried under an avalanche of new information. In anatomy, we have moved on to the back and extremities. But there are no organs, you say? Should be a cinch, you add? Pfft! There are more muscles and nerves than you can shake a stick at... and you'd be using dozens of them to shake the stick in the first place.

Anyways, lots of new info means a bunch of cool facts for you guys! Enjoy.

TIL: The first vertebra is called the atlas because, like the ancient Greek titan of the same name, it holds the globe in its hands. The weight of the entire head is balanced on just the two articular surfaces of this bone.

Statue of Atlas at 30 Rock

The axis is the 2nd vertebra and it has a structure called the dens which reaches up into the atlas, providing support analogous to the vertebral bodies of lower vertebrae. If a person's dens is abnormally long, it can pierce the spinal cord upon hyperflexion of the neck, killing the person "which can be a problem," as per my professor today.

Another developmental defect can be the formation of the ponticulus posticus, a small abnormal bridge of bone on the atlas that can cause a presenting person to pass out by pinching off the vertebral artery when they tilt their head back too far. This defect is more prevalent in women and can be found while at a hair salon when the hairdresser goes to wash the woman's hair and she loses consciousness in the chair.

There is a set of muscles in the back that do nothing, or rather they don't move anything as one would expect a muscle to do. These muscles have instead been found to be proprioceptive, meaning they provide sensory input to the brain about their relative level of tension, allowing one to better gauge the stresses being placed on one's back.

The lower part of the spinal cord looks very similar to the tail of a horse and thus is quite literally named cauda equina or "horse tail" in latin.

WILTIMS #36: Brain Pain

Not much was learned today as it was an exam day for Anatomy. And it was not an easy exam... or so I thought. The average turned out to be nearly 90%! We apparently know our stuff, even if we don't know that we know it. It's amazing to me, as someone who never really studied for anything in undergrad, that I can put my all into this class generally and this test specifically, study for weeks and for the entire four-day weekend prior, and still not feel confident walking in or out of that test.

I think the most embarrassing part of the day was when I couldn't identify the item picked out on my cadaver - on my half of my cadaver! I had no clue what nerve they had picked out. No one else seemed to know either though, so that made me feel better.

 TIL: Tests continue to suck.

Jamaican patties are quite tasty!

Study Aid #2

Click to go to the full sized map

We're in the midst of another four day weekend that is perfectly situated for studying for our anatomy test on Monday. I wrapped up yesterday's study session with a midnight cadaver poking session. Tonight, I decided to make a concept map of all the vasculature we need to know for the upcoming exam. I'll probably keep tweaking it but I thought I'd share what I've done so far. A nervous system map will probably follow tomorrow...

WILTIMS #26: Got Monson?

Today in anatomy, we had a lecture on the perineum (the lower pelvis) and in histology we tackled the classification and development of blood cells.

I also decided to run for one of the first-year Student Senate positions and had to give a speech to my classmates. Well, I had to give a speech, at least; the classmates were mostly absent. Of 200 students, 15 are running for 5 spots on the Senate. About 20 non-candidates showed up for the speeches which were merely off the cuff comments in which each person essentially said that they have lots of leadership experience.

The winners will be announced on Monday. I eagerly await finding out if my student election losing streak from junior high will continue.

TIL: Healthy adults produce 10,000,000,000 red blood cells every hour.

When someone is diagnosed with any stage of testicular cancer, the first thing that's done is the excision of the diseased testis*. Conveniently, the testes are extremely accessible through the scrotum, right? Wrong! The testes and scrotum actually have totally separate lymphatic drainage. This becomes important with cancer because any metastases flow through the lymphatic drainage and get caught in the downstream lymph nodes. So, the last thing a surgeon wants to do is expose a second lymph bed to possible metastases by dragging the cancerous testis through the scrotum. Because of this, every orchiectomy (testicle removal) is performed through the abdomen.

*In yet another example of complicated terminology for no good reason, testis is the technical anatomical term for a testicle. They are completely synonymous.