An Ode to H. P. Lovecraft

Here is the actual text from the instructions for today's lab:

"Today there are two dissections. Most tables will dissect the suboccipital region - a few tables will detach the head from the vertebral column."

Ahem.

Only a few tables? Oh please, please, please, please!

*Dramatic pause...*

I'm happy to say that my table was indeed one of the few, the proud, the....macabre.



So, we started off the dissection by

...On second thought, this really needs no further explanation.

Brains, Eyeballs & Mangled Faces: A Halloween-Themed Week in Med School

Those of you who read my previous post are privy to the fact that Tuesday's dissection was, well, epic. Human scalping (I actually forgot to mention this part), skull removal, brain adoration; essentially a day filled with revelry and stupefaction. After a day like that, the rest of the week must have been unbearably mundane, right? WRONG. Imagine my surprise when, upon arriving to lab on Thursday, I found myself in for yet another wonderful anatomical treat: the eye dissection.

Now, as many of you know, I absolutely LOVE the brain. Neuroscience was pretty much my passion during undergrad, and I continue to maintain an emphatic interest in the subject. However, I'd be outright lying if I said that the eye didn't have its own special place in my heart; if the brain is my high school sweetheart, the eye is my secret love affair. So although Thursday's dissection wasn't quite as thrilling (we don't have quite as much history together), it was still a remarkable experience. So here, back by popular demand, is another abridged* summary of lab-day events:

Step 1. Remove eyelids
Step 2. Deflate eyeball
Step 3. --
Step 4. Oh, yeah... It's probably going to squirt... Sorry about that.
Step 5. Remove Eyeball
Step 6. Check it out, man!

**Duh nuh nuh nuh! You've found a lens implant! These can be used to replace an old/faulty lens to correct for age-related vision loss. It has been added to your inventory.**

Step 7. Rejoice, marvel, revel, etc.

Awesome. End of story.

Story two: begin. We had the absolute COOLEST lecture on Friday. Throughout GIE, we will occasionally have guests give "Clinical Correlate" lectures, which are presentations that connect what we've been learning in anatomy to actual clinical medicine. This often includes surgeries/procedures that require the use of specific knowledge pertaining to the area we are studying at the time. Some past lectures have covered such topics as colorectal and urogenital surgeries, sports injury repairs, etc. Though these lectures have always been nice in that they provide a sense of context for the material, they haven't been particularly thrilling until now. But THIS week, oh man.

The lecturer this week, an absolutely hysterical, animated plastic surgeon, gave a halloween-themed presentation on facial reconstruction surgery. I have to say, the things these surgeons can do are absolutely unbelievable. He talked about reconstructing a patient's ear by tracing out a template and using cartilage from their ribs. He lectured on laparoscopic (minimally invasive surgery by camera) skull repairs. He described replacing a girl's scalp who had gotten her hair caught in farm machinery. He even told us about reconstructing AN ENTIRE FACE for a man who, in desperation, had shot himself with a shotgun. Un-be-lievable. And of course, along with the lecture, he provided us with ample, gruesome (perfectly appropriate for Halloween) pictures and videos of the procedures. What a perfect ending to a delightful week of fantastical anatomical exhibitions.



*NOTICE: Some artistic liberties have been taken. Events may have occurred slightly differently than portrayed.

A Brain in the Hand is Worth Two in the Head

Last Monday marked the beginning of the end (of anatomy, that is): our fourth and final block has begun. So far, this final block has proven to be fairly difficult in terms of the material. Having exhaustively covered the upper limbs and back (block 1); the thorax, abdomen and pelvis (block 2); and the lower limbs and perineum (block 3); we now find ourselves slogging through the head and neck, a rather complex set of structures confined to a comparatively meager area of the body.

As a rule in GIE, up until block 4, the heads on all the cadavers remain covered; they like to give everyone plenty of time to get acclimated before uncovering the face, seeing as it tends to affect people the most profoundly. But now it has come time to start in on the head and neck. Therefore, two weeks ago, during our first lab session for this block, we began the dissection by removing the head shrouds. Prior to this point, I had thought quite a bit about what uncovering the head would be like, wondering just how much it might affect me. I knew I would be able to handle it, but figured it would likely be a powerful moment, just as the very first day of lab--what now seems like decades ago--had been. As it turned out, although it certainly elicited some strange feelings for a moment or two, I ultimately found myself largely unmoved. I think this was partly because the face, preserved as it was, looked rather fake; unhuman. Beyond that, it seems that the whole lab process has been rather desensitizing: I've become so accustomed to the (intimate) exploration of my cadaver, starting in on the head just seemed like a perfectly normal next step.

And that step led us one closer to the finish.

I have to say, with our final anatomy exam a mere 1.5 weeks away, I am thrilled that the light at the end of the optic canal has finally come into view. Although I have truly enjoyed many aspects of the course, and it has certainly been an undeniably unique experience (as those of you who have stuck around for the ride know full well), I am desperately looking forward to moving on. I am tired of having to shower twice a day. I am tired of the unrelenting olfactory assault. I am tired of memorizing origins and insertions and the names of every single canal and fossa and hiatus and condyle and fascial layer known to man. I'm ready for to get back into the familiar, conceptual territory of biology and biochemistry.

...Then again, a few weeks from now, when I'm drowning in metabolic cycles and cellular signals, I'm sure I'll be begging to go back to the simple, straightforward material that so vexes me at the moment. So it goes.

But then again...again, this block also has some pretty sweet perks. How so, you ask? Please elaborate, you request? Just get on with it already, you vociferate? Well, if you insist.

Here is an abbreviated version of my lab instructions for Tuesday:

Step 1.  Remove the skullcap
Step 2.  Yeah, keep trying. This may take a while. I'll wait.
Step 3.  ...

Step 4.  Got it? Great. 
Step 5.  While you're at it, why don't you go ahead and take the brain out, too?

Step 6.  Hold brain in hand, admire it in all its brain-y glory
Step 7.  Rejoice

That's right, folks. You heard it here first. Tuesday was skullcap and brain day, the highlight of anatomy lab. It was glorious.

Days Like This Must Make My Parents Proud

I had relaxing, study-free evening yesterday following our second exam. I ate some comfort food (Mom's famous homemade mac 'n' cheese)...watched a little TV.... It was nice.

Today we jumped right into the dissection of the anal triangle.

...What a strange life I lead.

A day in the life...

Yesterday we were tasked with the exploration of the pelvis, an area both complex and elusive to even the most seasoned anatomist. Gaining access to the depths of our cadaver's pelvis meant snipping off the distal bowel and moving it to the side. Now, I know many of you--my fine readers--are thinking this to be a simple task, wondering quietly to yourselves as to why I would I would even bother to bring this up in passing conversation, let alone devote an entire blog entry to such a paltry matter. And you would most certainly be correct in your oh-so-naive assumption, were said bowels not filled, packed, dare I say SATURATED from end-to-end, stomach-to-rectum. With what you ask? Oh, don't be silly. You know just as well as I do that you could have identified the contents with one hand haughtily behind your back (and the other humbly upon your nose).

So there we found ourselves, the anatomical adventurers that we are, face to face with a task: to (and I quote) "milk" the fecal matter up the colon and away from the rectum--all the while praying that it didn't travel out the other end in the process--in order to establish an empty area in which to make our cut. Seeing as we were all udderly lacking in farmacological experience, we took turns milking as best we knew how. Next we tied (make that double tied) knots on either end of the "oh-man-I-hope-we-got-it-all" newly emptied region. At which point, after significant deliberation, perspiration and condemnation (and perhaps a little anxious micturation), it was finally time to separate the men from the boys, the colons from rectums. So, like the obliging mayor at a grand opening ceremony, I boldly stepped forward to make the cut. The only difference--whereas our friend the mayor might find himself rather embarrased upon missing the ribbon, I was praying to avoid it at all costs. Also my scissors weren't quite so big.

In the end, I'm happy to say that my aim held up and the crisis was averted. We got through the whole process with what I like to call "minimal leakage". Another day, another lesson learned (though I'm not quite sure what it was), another task completed. Digging in fat, suffering through ever-evolving odorous assults, and milking voluminous bowels. All in a day's work.

Elective Procedures

Since I have so much free time these days, I decided to go ahead and sign up for a "medical Spanish" elective. They typically offer the course at three different skill levels: advanced beginner, intermediate, and advanced. This year they were unable to offer the advanced level course, so only the first two are available. I just got home from taking a placement test to make sure that I am qualified to enroll in the course, and to find out which course is appropriate for my abilities. After a brief oral test (I also took a written test, but he hadn't even looked at it), the instructor told me that I am probably qualified for the advanced level, albeit "weakly" so, but definitely a solid candidate for the intermediate class. I was actually under the impression that I had performed pretty poorly, so I think with a little (or a lot) of practice, I should be able to do ok. I was pretty amazed at how much I had forgotten, though. Very basic words on the written test--like "green"--totally eluded me. I'm a little apprehensive about enrolling in the intermediate course; whereas the advanced beginner course offers a review of grammar and terminology, they skip over it entirely at the intermediate level. On the other hand, I think I will get a lot more out of the intermediate course, so I  think I'll go for it. I may simply have to put in a little more work. The class meets weekly from 6-8pm on Wednesdays. Unfortunately, Wednesday is also the day that I have PCM from 1-5pm, as well as a lunchtime meeting from 12-1pm, so I will essentially be in class from 8am-8pm, excluding a 1 hour break for dinner. Eek!

There are also a few other electives I'm considering taking, all of which take place weekly from 12-1pm on various days. One of them is called Global Health Talks and is simply a series of lectures on various topics regarding global and public health, disaster response, etc. I've recently become very interested in medical opportunities abroad (since my trip to Costa Rica/Panama, really), so I think this would be a great elective for me to take. There's also another one called "Specialty Talks" where they highlight a different medical specialty each week and have a panel of doctors specialized in that field provide info on their career. This one is great for people who are totally clueless about what area of medicine they want to pursue, just like your friendly neighborhood blog writer, yours truly.

I think it's really important to be involved outside of simply taking classes, and there are already so many great opportunities to do so; it's too bad I don't have the time to explore them all.

Health Care Haiku #1

Please enjoy the following haiku that I wrote:

Anatomy lab:

where else could you hear things like,

"Hey, hand me that skin"