Summary of 1st Semester

This summer was mainly a crash course in Anatomy. It was a 6 credit hour class: a combination of lab and class work. Weekly I spent at least 10 hours in the Anatomy lab dissecting a cadaver. Every 3 weeks culminated with a 3 hour exam: 1 hour lab and 2 hours written. We started with the Upper Extremity, then the Thorax and Abdomen, then one week on the Lower Extremity and finally the Head and Neck.

By far Head and Neck were the most complicated. We had to learn all the Cranial Nerves, including all their components and functions. The Dissection of this region was the most difficult and tedious. If you have never dissected anything, it is hard to explain the difficulty in finding nerves, arteries and muscles (in tact) on a cadaver. If you are interested in this aspect, please ask.

A word or two on dissection...
The smell is DISGUSTING and got progressively worse as the summer progressed. The smell is from the preservative Phenol. It causes a variety of side effects over prolonged exposure.

My class dissected at the same time as the Physical Therapy students. I was surprised to learn that they had to dissect all of the same areas of the body that we did. They even spend an extra summer in the lab dissecting joints and muscles.

This summer, I also took 3 other classes - Physical Diagnosis, Problem Based Learning and Psychosocial. Physical Diagnosis was interesting because I learned some of the practical components of how to do a physical exam. If you have been to your doctor for a basic check-up, you have seen the skills I learned this summer: Eyes, ears, nose, throat, lymph nodes, lungs, and heart. We also learned how to do upper and lower extremity function exams.

Problem Based Learning and Psychosocial are classes I will continue taking over the full-length of the program. PBL teaches students how to think through the process of diagnosing patients and Psychosocial trains students to treat the full person, including culture, family, and medical complexities. Every patient is different and deserves to be treated with the best care available. Medical providers need to learn to leave any prejudices at the door and care for the full person. Sometimes this means asking "uncomfortable" questions and educating patients on procedures the provider may not agree with.

Bottom-line? If you can't put your prejudices aside and care people and their individual needs, this is NOT the profession for you...In actuality, this means you probably shouldn't be in ANY career that allows you to deal with people. The difference is that medicine is a life or death situation at times.

Overall it was a tough summer. I studied A LOT, got good grades but mainly LEARNED A TON! Hopefully I will retain a good portion of it :-)

Enough about summer. Any questions? feel free to ask!