Light at the end of the tunnel

Tomorrow is our last day with Bob. To tell you the truth, I don't know whether to break out the party hats or cry. I guess you could say I've had a hate/love realtionship with anatomy. There were things I loved about it (working with my group, wearing scrubs every day, learning cool clinical stuff), but there were also things I hated about it (mass of material taking the fun out of it, bisecting bob's head, and of course, head pies). To elaborate on head pies, let me just say that they are very old, very preserved, well, slices of heads for us to look at. There are about 120 0f them in our lab, and yes, I'm supposed to have examined them all by next wednesday. Hmmm.

So as I was saying, tomorrow is our last day of dissection. That's good, because there is really nothing left to dissect. Ever heard of that book "A Million Little Pieces"? Well, that's about the state that Bob is in right now. So we'll finish up tomorrow, and then study like mad until wednesday, the day we take the exams and officially finish the semester. I can't believe an entire semester has passed already. Only three and a half years to go now.....

What I really wanted to write about today is my Foundations of Clinical Medicine class. I really think VCU has a great program in this regard. It is a two year long program in which we alternate weeks between preceptor visits and small group sessions. Small group sessions (8 students) are led by a doctor and a 4th year medical student, and we learn all the things we need to learn to perform clinically, including medical history taking and physical exams. Sometimes we get standardized patients to practice on. Like today, for example, we practiced abdominal exams and head and neck exams on a standardized patient. It was really incredibly cool! It's definitely days like today that make me appreciate being a medical student. But back to the topic: My preceptor is a pediatrician and I visit her practice one day every other week. At first I simply shadowed her, but at this point I have progressed to seeing patients on my own. I interview the patient (or parent), by obtaining a chief complaint and history of the present illness. Depending on the circumstances, I may also obtain a past medical history, social history, or family history. Then I do whatever components of the physical exam I can do up to this point, including auscultation of the heart and lungs, head and neck, and abdomen. Then I present the case orally to her, after which she sees the patient and verifies (or not) my findings. Of course I don't know that I'm talking about half the time, but it is really great when I do. As an example: at one of my first sessions, she had me listen to a baby's chest who was presenting with wheezing. I didn't hear a damn thing, but of course I nodded my head that I had heard it. So you can imagine that a couple weeks ago, when I detected wheezing in a two year old all by myself, I was pretty proud. It's really amazing how you progress and improve with practice. It's not something you can follow sequentially, or in a stepwise fashion. For most of the semester I didn't feel like I was improving at all. I felt retarded and awkward most of the time. But I really was getting better all the time and just didn't see it in myself until it all clicked one day.

That being said, I will tell you that a received a near perfect score on my clinical skills exam. How awesome is that? I really really love this class. Too bad my scores are so crummy in anatomy. Can't be a shining star in everything I suppose. But perhaps if I spent less time watching TV, sleeping, and procrastinating in general, I would get better scores. Hmmm. Intriguing notion. I see a New Year's resolution in the works maybe....

But speaking of the holidays, I can't wait for next wednesday to be over so that I can start my vacation. And I'm sure you all feel the same way. Good luck on finals, and make sure you enjoy your time off!

Pictures from the AMA conference

Presenting Anshu's poster at the abstract competition (by the way, he won his division!)





Anshu, Jason, and me.

Anshu, Janelle (our pres), me, Zeina, and Jason

Med student party at Bellagio's Light

Allison and me

Startin to feel those drinks.....

Girl's afternoon out. Notice the 100 ounce margarita in the middle of the table.

Does life get any better?

Yes, it does. 100 ounce margarita AND balloon hats. Sweet.