An elevated eyebrow

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Getting to know you!

I was asked to write another space filling article for another thing. Struggling to come up with an idea, I consulted another classmate. We had a laugh and managed to punch out something that we thought was witty. Unfortunately, our most innuendo laden pun failed to hit the mark so was cut. Probably because we were entering that unfortunate stage of delirium one enters with too much time on one task when we wrote it. So I present to you some of the surviving bits. A big thankyou to my esteemed colleague (to borrow a phrase) who co-wrote and co-procrastinated it to pseudo-success.

Facts about the body: how well do you know yourself?

Being in med school, you're in a prime position.  But which human cell is most numerous in your composition?

A) Neuron

            B) RBC

            C) Skeletal muscle

            D) Neutrophil

The most common cell type in your body is actually bacterial. So what percentage of your cells is human material?

            A) 50%

            B) 30%

            C) 10%

            D) 5%

As a medical student you should understand the feeling of being broke. But which is the bone that gets broke the most?

A)   Clavicle

B)   Radius

C)   Mandible

D)   Scaphoid

At long last, we move along from the long bones to the longest muscle of the body. Which has it been all along?

            A) Trapezius

            B) Sartorius

            C) Latissimus dorsi

            D) Gastrocnemius

Weighed down by knowledge is how you will be, when reaching the end of your medical degree. To fill up your brain will have taken much time, but the weight of your brain and which book, most closely align?

A)   Boron & Boulpaep, Medical Physiology

B)   Moore & Dalley, Clinically Oriented Anatomy

C)   Talley & O’Connor, Clinical Examination

D)   Longmore et al. The Oxford Handbook of Clinical Medicine

And yes, for the record I actually weighed the text books to see which weighed closest to the average brain weight of 1.4Kg. 

If you want the answers you'll have to earn them.

A Bi-polar expedition

Someone sent this around recently. It's a fascinating documentary about a guy with Bi-polar disorder (manic-depression). It's just amazing. This guy loves his mania so much, but what happens is just nuts.

Here's the blurb:
The extraordinary true story of millionaire businessman Paul Downes who hires a Jamaican castle and invites 12 models to join him to become his wives. What at first appeared to be an innocent fantasy rapidly becomes bewildering as Paul suffered a massive bipolar episode. He quickly loses interest in the women and what at first looked like a distorted reality show transforms into a bizarre spin on James Bond as Paul plots to take over the world. A full-blown mania has rarely been filmed and A Bipolar Expedition comes face to face with the extremes of his condition as events in Jamaica reach a crescendo.

Watch it!

For those of you interested, here is a checklist of symptoms that categorise mania. Yes, he has most of them.

Common behaviour associated with mania includes:

 increased energy
 irritability
 overactivity 
 being reckless or taking unnecessary risks (e.g. driving fast or dangerously)
 increased spending
 increased sex drive
 racing thoughts
 rapid speech 
 decreased sleep
 grandiose ideas
 hallucinations and/or delusions

Let there be small amounts of light!

Apparently dilated pupils are attractive. If you want to be more attractive - try rubbing cocaine in your eyes!

I once read a life hack advice column, with stupid suggestions on how to be more efficient at life. Some of them of course were really good, the others were trash. One of the best suggestions was to keep one eye closed when you wake up at night, so that after you've flicked the light on then off again your night vision will be retained in the closed eye. Brilliant! No more walking in to furniture on the way back from the bathroom right?

I always thought this was because the pupil of the closed eye would remain dilated, allowing more light in when the darkness returns. It turns out that's not the case. As neurology has taught me, in a normal person shining a light in one eye causes the pupils of both eyes to constrict (The consensual response.) If that's not happening, you should get yourself to a doctor because you've probably got some sort of brain lesion.

With regard to the night vision it actually turns out it's the cells at the back of your eye that make the detector for light. In the absence of light they become more sensitive to smaller and smaller amounts of light. By covering your eye in the light, the sensitivity is retained*.


And now you know another useless fact.

*Yes this has something to do with carrots, as carrots contain carotine, which is converted to Rhodopsin, which is used to signal to the brain when light hits the back of the eye. In the dark you get more Rhodopsin building up, so the cells are more likely to signal in lower light. So eat your veggies!

I want to get out of Kansas

There comes a time in medical school, when you cease to have any idea what is going on. That time is now! It's not that I'm stupid, it's just that the brain doesn't have one function. Nor one part. In fact it's just silly how much we don't know about the brain.

It's just silly how much I don't know about the brain.

It's funny isn't it. You'd think your own brain would have no trouble understanding itself.

Bah!

Ugh, speaking of an epic lack of understanding. I'm trying to figure out what I want to do with myself next year. We had the crash course introduction yesterday. Glamorous women strolled forth, flipping their signage over whilst music played and exotic locations were unfurled before us.

"Who wants to go to Noarlunga!?" They exclaimed, whilst throngs of young adults lunged forward, desperate for a piece of the South-side action.

"What about Mount Gambier? The riverland? The Fleurieu? Darwin, Katherine, Alive Springs? Perhaps you would like to go to the exotic, yet conveniently located FMC, about 3cm from here?"

They all seemed so good, except one place where you live with the Doctor who likes to run, and makes you run with him. Yuck.

Honestly I can't decide. I'm torn between staying here, because it would be easy and regimented (which I'm good at.) Or getting out, seeing the world, developing my life skills and getting stacks more hands on experience... In some place like the Mount.

I am also realising that that this undergrad holiday will come to an end. It has been a fun couple years in med school. Much hilarity and education. But things tend to change, and pulling up stumps for a year may not be such a bad thing.

Maybe it is time to grow up. Sigh. Part of me looks forward to a challenge, the other part fears failing it. The solutions seems pretty obvious.

Anyway, there's a poll up. Tell me what I should do if you feel inclined. Or comment even, my blog does have that functionality if you would like to use it...

I am learning a lot. Seriously.

For the first time ever in anatomy. I was actually challenged by something I saw this week. Naturally it didn't stop me from watching it, actually seeing it twice. But it's the first time I've ever gone home and still had it playing on mind that night. Usually I walk out of anatomy and don't think about it. I especially don't make any correlation between the cadaver and a cadaver having been a human.

That may sound strange, but I think that's the normal coping mechanism. Anyway, there was something that really sticks in your mind... I'm not going in to details. But it was interesting to watch the professional anatomists just take it all in their stride, while the young medical students either watched on in horror* or looked away.

Sigh, I hope I'm cut out for this.

In a way it reminds me of work in the lab. Sometimes you'd get the cream of the crop come to the lab. Although they had thrived within the boundaries of rigid assessment. As soon as they were let free to be bound by their own creativity - they sank, not swam.

I guess third year will decide that for me then! Speaking of third year related decisions. I have to choose what to do with my time. To stay at FMC, or head off to the sticks. Hmmm, so much to weigh up on that front. I need to seriously contemplate the merits of a year in the country.

*I should probably clarify that nothing dodgy was going on! It's just that anatomy classes have a lot of things happening that don't normally happen in the real world! You just don't normally look at peoples insides and occasionally it all becomes very 'whoa'. It's just different... Still respectful, and still educational.

P.S I promise I'll write a funny post soon. Amusing stuff does happen to me still! I'm just trying to write a medical themed blog.

Two things - A Biopic?

Had a few lectures on the eye today. I'll be honest - I find looking at inflamed eyes confronting. But the more I gazed upon them, the less gross they became. I like eyes normally, but weird eyes are weird.

Look out below?

Having said that, I'm sure I will handle them like a professional when the day comes. Eye injuries are quite common.

And now for something completely different: I'm fairly confident Berocca has close to zero medicinal value, especially in people with a decent diet. But I do enjoy monitoring my kidney function.

Complementary medicine

I had my SP assessment this morning. As I've recalled before, an SP is a standardised patient. A person who acts out a certain medical history in a reproducible manner so that all students can be assessed fairly and reproducibly. And I'm against that.

This is an actor playing a doctor. In many ways this is like me. Also the creepy patient in the background staring at you while you pose... also happens to me.

No, not the use of SP's. But the fact that it is fair. So I've ingeniously discovered a way to win the SP over and give myself the edge:

To prep you for the scenario, you are told to expect a patient of a certain stereotype, every student gets the same scenario more or less. Today I was told to expect an old looking man in his 50's. As there are numerous SPs, hardly any of them fit the stereotype. I've found the best way to begin an interview with a faux patient is to say that they look a lot younger than you were expecting. Seems to win them over from the start. They pretty much give up their history after that. Or maybe it's that they are trained to do that and I'm okay at talking to people. Whatever!

Regardless, it all went okay. Managed to speed through the history, GIT, cardio and resp exam in about 1 hour and ten minutes. I thought I was doing okay, with most people taking a bit longer. But one chap, who is a nurse by trade blitzed the whole thing in 45 minutes, without missing anything. Dang!

Room for improvement? I guess so!

Clear!

I'm not a joiner, a keener, or one of those peeps who aims to make medical school in to an episode of scrubs. On occasion though, I do like to challenge myself a little, and get involved with some of the activities that go on around med school.

Yesterday for shirts and giggles, my study group (well, more or less) responded to the desperate plea of one of our fellow second years to field a team for an emergency medicine challenge. The theme of which was "explosion." I'll be honest, I only got involved because one of my colleagues is a practicing paramedic. Who else would you want to leave a team of novices who have about as little emergency medical training as one can get?

Having said that, we were all qualified in basic life support... we also had an ex-military nurse, two life-guards, a pharmacist who could draw up drugs and a couple newbs. Keen, but still newbs (especially me.) Other than that, we had had no preparation for the coming disaster.

A few different explosion themed medical scenarios were set up, and we got to compete with a couple teams from Radelaide and another Flinders team, who were equally unprepared. To save the suspense - we either came first or third (due to some confusion over which flinders team was team 1 or team 2.) The important thing being that we didn't come last and beat out a team of clinical students.

The scenarios were a mix of cannulating an arm and suturing an open wound. Single patient with blunt chest trauma and a tension pneumothorax. Single patient thrown by an explosion in to a car, with a broken pelvis and internal haemorrhage. And then a multiple casualty scenario, where you had triage three different casualties, get them on backboards and carry them off to an aid station.

It was all good fun, though my contribution was nothing particularly life saving, just jumping up and down a bit on a dummy chest etc. It was a valuable lesson in how to handle the excitement and pressure of trauma.

So apart from that, I passed my exams and did as well as I'd hoped in anatomy. I'm struggling to get motivated for brain and behaviour though. It's... uninspiring maybe? I'll put my head down soon. Once I pass GIT/Cardio/Resp exam on Monday...

The pace of things this year is a lot more intense than last year. I will say that.