(from en.wikipedia.org)

 Yes, it’s winding down. Monday was the last dissection in the gross lab for my group.  Tuesday was my last Histology small group. Tomorrow will be our last lecture, Thursday will be our last CSE, and Friday will be our last exam in HSF. 

So now it’s time to run to the end. On Sunday, I was worried that I might be sick. Thankfully, after resting and a good night’s sleep, I’m back to normal. 

*** 

Never understimate the hunger of a group of med students during the school week.  They can be like sharks, circling around for free food. If you haven’t marked or labeled your food, look out. 

I mention this because of a popcorn confection I took to a weekend holiday party. The snack was a hit, but I still had about two containers of it leftover. So I took the containers to med school and dropped them off in the med student lounge, with an “Eat Me” Post-It note on the top of each container.   

I dropped them off around 8 AM. Around 11 AM, I came back and found them each about 1/4 empty. (Keep in mind that classes were still going on.) By 3 PM, both containers were completely empty. I am impressed. 

***

Dr. Osol finished his lectures on pregnancy, puberty, and the male and female reproductive systems today (Tuesday), and he remained ever informative and hilarious.

He talks about the story of sperm, which he says is “one of the most tragic tales in biology”. You see, if around 250 million sperm are ejaculated into the female reproductive tract, then far more than 225 million sperm will die in the first two minutes! In fact, only a few thousand will survive to try and fertilize the egg.

He then asks a female in the front row to pretend to be the egg, and he acts out a sperm who’s attempting to fertilize the egg.

“You’re so beautiful, and I want to approach you, and I get very close! But then, my head starts to hurt! And I can’t get closer! And then I’m going to watch you as I die. Because another one got there first! I know you guys all know about that.”

Here are a few more of his quotes from his lectures: 

• “There really are two-headed sperm. I just couldn’t get one to show you. So I brought a brussel sprout instead.”
• “Sperm are fun. They’re really playful little cells.”
• On puberty: “Hopefully you’ve been through it. If not, you should see a doctor at this point.”
• On famous hermaphrodites: “And then there’s Lady Gaga! She might be Lad Gaga! I don’t know!” (Apparently there are rumors that she is one.)
• On the process of sperm maturation, which takes about 70 days: “So if a sperm starts today, right around Valentine’s Day, he’ll be ready to roll! He may be a Valentine’s Day present for some people.”
• “…Viagra, which the French call Le Weekend pill, because you take one on Friday and have a great weekend.”
• “Abstinence is perfect, if you can abstain. That’s the problem.”

***

Histology today was led by Dr. Deborah Cook, a pathologist here at UVM. Pathologists have the reputation of knowing everything. Actually, Dr. Cook tells us, it’s just that they know how to look up everything.

Nevertheless, they are awesome. I’ve met several of them in and out of school (as well as students going into the field), and literally every single one has been amazing.

Josh Pothen (UVM’s Meager Med Student)

Donate $1 to The Meager Med Student!

(from thestockmasters.com)

Med School Anti-Geek has generated more comments (both online and offline) from people than anything else I’ve written on this blog.

Unfortunately I don’t have the time to write an appropriate response on this blog. Yet. There is a need for one, and it will come over break. But I have a test on Friday, and I have to study. So please wait.

We now return to your regularly scheduled program.

***

Our new lecturer for the next few days is Dr. Osol, an OB/Gyn doctor who’ll talk to us about the male and female reproductive systems.

For some reason, this man reminds me of Christopher Walken. It’s something about his eyes, accent and intonation. It’s a bit bizarre.

He is also an awesome lecturer.  Jean Szilva had already given us the heads-up that this man was hilarious. Yes, he is. And informative.

He begins Friday’s lecture with a slide entitled ”Sex Lives of Animals.” He begins with the bedbug, and reads an article about their mating habits. Apparently, male bedbugs will mount any bedbug, male or female, when they’re *coughs* excited. So males will release a “warn” pheromone to tell other males not to mount them.

But what if you suppress the pheromone, as with nail polish? Bad things for bedbugs, because males apparently, um, attempt to inseminate by spraying the body of their partner. Females have protective coating around their bodies so they don’t get damaged. Males do not.

Any concerns I had about becoming a stiff disappear instantaneously. I laugh throughout the whole article.

“We could talk about other animals,” he continues. “Let’s talk about the tiger.” He clicks, and up pops a picture of Tiger Woods. The class laughs and groans. “He’s playing on the wrong golf course, I tell you, that boy.”

***

My group has Histology with Dr. Carson Cornbrooks this morning. He’s a terrific small group leader. We discuss the male reproductive system, which is fairly straightforward.

Lecture today ends around 2. I practice some clinical skills in a Doctoring Skills practice session so I can perfect a few things I got marked off for on the last exam. Afterward, I go home.

Hard to believe there’s an exam next Friday. Even more amazing is how much we’ve covered over the past two weeks.  

Josh Pothen (UVM’s Meager Med Student)

Donate $1 to The Meager Med Student!

(from http://shatterstrike.deviantart.com/)

Today, before Dr. Szilva’s lecture, one of my classmates performs a song for the entire class.

You may remember the Animaniacs song, “Nations of the World?” The simple tune that lists all the nations of the world: “United States, Canada, Mexico, Panama…”? My classmate uses the same tune to list all the muscles and bones we’ve learned in HSF throughout the semester. All of them. Did I mention he sang this perfectly from memory?

When he’s done, he naturally gets the loudest and longest applause I have ever heard from our med school class so far. There are lots of excited screams for encores. Indeed, he gave a superb and impressive performance.

But would it be bad to admit that I wasn’t that excited by it?

I suppose it’s my attitude towards much of scientific humor or geekdom. When I was younger, I found them funnier or more fascinating. Then I grew up and began to imbibe more culture. Read more good books. Got into film, art and good music. Oh, I’d had some of it before, but at this stage in my life, I really began to look harder at them, and so I grew to appreciate them.

And afterwards, well, I discovered I’d changed. The simplistic scientific jokes I’d heard couldn’t hold a candle to a sentence from a Wodehouse novel, for instance. But beyond that, I saw that many of my scientific friends, well, had little life, thoughts or conversation outside of science. Perhaps that’s why they love the humor so much. But I’d discovered other sources of enlightenment and beauty.

Do not get me wrong: I am not denigrating my friend’s performance. I’m still trying to understand why I reacted the way I did. What I am saying is that today helped me remember who I am.

I am a med student. I love science. But I am not a science geek. Perhaps it is my attempt to remain human.

***

Gross Lab again today. Today we’re studying the genitals of our cadavers. We’re working with a female one, so there are lots of structures to identify. ”I’ve never said the word ‘clitoris’ this many times before,” one of my labmates notes.

Later on we’re going to have to find a group with a male body so we can learn the structures there too.

Another tidbit about the gross lab: What do you do when you need help? There are three TAs and four instructors (Jean, Laura, Betsy and Ellen The Magnificent) floating around, but there are 19 stations.

Answer: There is a “deli list” on the blackboard in the gross lab. When you need assistance, you go up to the board and write your table number at the bottom of the list. The instructors then go down that list throughout the day, and once they are done helping a table, they return and cross it out.

***

Next Thursday will be our Doctoring Skills exam, and next Friday will be our final HSF exam (with a practical part and a multiple-choice part).

Today they sent us info about the Doctoring Skills CSE. It will essentially be a cumulative final of everything we’ve done so far. They also sent us the complete list of different clinical tests we’ve learned. I’m shocked to realize it’s nearly 100. But not so shocked when I step back and think about it. It’s amazing how empowered you can be over the course of a few months.

Josh Pothen (UVM’s Meager Med Student)

Donate $1 to The Meager Med Student!

(from www.cdc.gov)

It may be snowing hard outside, but that won’t stop med students from showing up at 8 AM for the opportunity to see a surgery. We didn’t go to the operating room, of course. They set up a camera in the operating room so we could sit in Med Ed 200 and watch.

Today, the surgery was a laproscopic cholycystectomy, i.e. a gallbladder removal where they make a very tiny incision which they put their instruments through. They put a camera down with a scope into the patient, so we could see what they were doing in the abdomen. They even had this cool instrument which could inflate or deflate a tiny plastic bag attached to it, which they used to remove the gallbladder.

“Would it have been quicker to open up the whole abdomen?” asks a student. “If we did that, it would have taken us as much time as this surgery just to sew the abdomen back up,” the doctor replies. Betsy (i.e. Dr. Ezerman) also comments that her father had that form of gallbladder surgery, and that it took him a long period of time to recover. She, however, had the laproscopic surgery, and was out of the hospital the same day as the surgery. Amazing, huh?

Special thanks to the patient, whoever he/she was, for giving permission for us to watch.

***

Today’s Doctoring Skills is not about learning new exams. Rather, it’s about learning to integrate everything we’ve learned so we can begin working on our diagnosis skills.

So our SPs simulate a patient for us. (In our case, it was a woman who’d come in with a cough that had started about a week ago.) “Don’t worry about getting the diagnosis right,” they tell us. “There is no right answer. We just want to see your thought process.”

So my classmate and I make a list of different things it could be (e.g. infection, inflammation, toxin, cancer, etc.). We take a History of Present Illness to find out details about her cough. We ask about certain risk factors, such as obesity or history of familial hypertension. We make a list of different physical exams we’d perform on her. The exciting thing is that at the end, we do make a reasonable diagnosis.  

“That was the most fun I’ve had in Doctoring Skills,” a fellow classmate tells me. It does feel now like we’re moving closer to be able to help patients.

***

I meet with Dr. Steve Lidofsky, the head of the MD/PhD program here at UVM. We chat about how the semester is going, and talk about research for the summer.

I tell him I plan with talking with faculty members over January. He thinks that’s excellent. He also advises me to try to make a decision by March, and also urges me to not be shy and make sure the people I want to work with over the summer would be able to take on another grad student. These summer research sessions are meant to morph into our grad school projects, after all.  

He also lets me know he’s only an email away, and that he’s always more than happy to meet with me. I know he means that. He’s representative of many of the faculty members here at UVM, and that’s part of why I love the place so much.

***

Feeling better about the Gross Anatomy this time around, particularly due to my tutor.

I haven’t really written about how the tutoring system works at UVM, so now’s as good a time as any. The tutors are paid by UVM, and for HSF, they’re allowed to meet with us for 2 hours a week.

With mine, we usually do two separate hour-long sessions each week in the Gross Lab. In each one, he’ll point to items on the structure list, and I’ll try to identify them. Along the way, he’ll give me tips for getting oriented in the body and help me correct my thought processes on identification when I make a mistake.

Is there a social stigma to being seen with your tutor in the lab, and thus being identified as a weaker student? Maybe. I don’t hear the med school gossip. I don’t particularly care, though. I just want to learn and refine this skill. And based off of how our sessions have been going, I think I’ll be fine.

Josh Pothen (UVM’s Meager Med Student)

Donate $1 to The Meager Med Student!

(from en.wikipedia.org)

 We kick off today at 9 AM with Histology. Dr. Fiekers (you may remember him from CMB) is our leader today, and he does a good job of walking us through the structure and histology of the kidney. 

Normally there’s one Histology section each week, but this week we have two. Dr. Fiekers admits it’s a rush, and he doesn’t know why we’re cramming it all in. From my POV, it’s either this or take another weeek of HSF. And as much as I love HSF, I want to go home for the holidays. 

*** 

The CMDA has a Bible study meeting at lunch. The second-years tell us how they’re having these lectures on aging in their Generations course. 

The subject of elderly people driving comes up. One of the second-years tells us how one elderly driver had an accident that resulted in a person flying through the windshield of the driver’s car. This driver than drove off, oblivious to the fact that there was a dead person in his/her windshield. Somehow this hits a dark funny bone. 

The leaders tell us afterward that this may be our last meeting for the semester, since the second-years have a final next Wednesday and thus will be busy studying on Tuesday. The time has come for the leadership to transition, but there aren’t too many first-years attending right now. We’ll see what happens. 

*** 

Dr. Gennari returns for two lectures on glomerular filtration rate and renal tubles in the kidney. Some of this, apparently, we didn’t understand until ten to fifteen years ago. Very fascinating. 

Yesterday, he was wearing a kidney tie that his daughter gave him as a gift when she started medical school. Today, he’s wearing a red tie with imprinted with elephants. At the beginning of lecture, he tells us he does this because in his travels around the world, he’s developed a fascination with Ganesha, the Hindu god of knowledge and education. 

“So let’s get our Ganesha on,” he says, and jumps right into lecturing. 

***  

Today is what we might call a very special MSLG. We were asked to discuss reproductive rights, namely abortion. Dr. Rosen specifically encouraged us argue well and productively.  

Out of respect for my group members’ privacy, I’m not going to reveal much about our very civil conversation. But I don’t think I’m betraying much of a secret to say that I ended up being one of the few people who leant towards the pro-life side. I should have anticipated that. The problem is that, well, I didn’t, and so I didn’t prepare as much as I should have, due to our HSF schedule. And when you’re one of the few people on a particular side in a discussion, you need to be at the top of your game. 

Now it is over. But as I reflect back over it, things become clearer. I see now where I stand and why I stand there. I am willing to admit that there is much I don’t know, much I am thinking through and much I could be deeply wrong about.   

And I also see that I prepared for this conversation the wrong way. 

 I should not have argued from a logical standpoint, but from a more emotional one. I should have realized that someone’s position is more personal than I might think, since it is often implicitly tied to their own views of sex and what they would do if they (or their S.O.) were pregnant. I should have been more sensitive to that and somehow addressed that in our conversation. 

But more importantly, I should have talked with my sister and taken notes. 

I’ve been told that my pro-life tendencies are, in part, due to the fact that I’m a male and don’t understand what a woman goes through. But I have a sister, and we’re very close. I do consider how, were I in charge, my positions on abortion would affect her.

But it’s more than that. She is, in all seriousness, one of the most thoughtful and intelligent women I’ve met. She’s taught and continues teaches me a lot about women (and life). And she’s pro-life. To a certain extent, that gives me confidence in taking the same stance. She would have been able to provide a valuable perspective I don’t have.

Too bad the discussion is over. Never too late to learn again, though. If you’re reading this, Duckface, we need to talk.

Josh Pothen (UVM’s Meager Med Student)

Donate $1 to The Meager Med Student!

(Courtesy of http://www.flickr.com/photos/10112271@N00/)

 Here’s the weather I’ve been waiting for since I moved to Vermont. Yes, today I woke up today to the sight of an inch or two of snow covering the ground. 

The areas I walk through in Burlington look so much more beautiful now, particularly at night. When the ground is covered with snow, the city lights are shining bright and the flurries are falling, the familiar locales take on a more serene look and feel.

***

Overheard in Lecture: “It’s (classmate)’s birthday today! I was going to make her a birthday card. I had all these interesting ideas with construction paper, but my standards were too high, so I didn’t do it. So I brought her a clementine.”

***

Today is a more routine day. Usually, an HSF Monday begins at 9. But since there’s so much material we have to cram in before our exam next Friday, today’s festivities kicked off at 8. Dr. Segal starts with a lecture at 8 to 9, after which we go to Gross Lab (or Histology, if you were in the other group.)  More on that later.

***

Gross Lab mostly involves cleaning and further examing the kidneys, adrenal glands, and the nerves and arteries in the abdomen. Our table has a running gag with another classmate, where he comes by and not-so-surreptitiously tries to steal our lab instruments. This time we unintentionally take it to a new level. He later comes back looking for his Red Book (the gross anatomy book), only to find that it’s at our table. Hahaha.

Thievery, by the way, is surprisingly common in the Gross Lab. Oh, no one takes supplies out of the lab. But oftentimes you’ll put your supplies and books at your lab table, and return the next day to find them somewhere else in the lab. Why? Because someone will have come to study, and when they can’t find their probes, scalpels or Red Book, they’ll often come to “borrow” yours, and then forget to put things back.

Sometimes it goes too far. One time our table actually lost all our lab supplies, and Betsy (i.e. Dr. Ezerman) had to make an announcement asking people to send us their extras so we could do our dissection. The worst case actually happened at the beginning of the year. I bought a Red Book for our table, but didn’t write my name in it. The next day, I came back and found it was missing from our table. It’s floating somewhere around the gross cadaver lab now as one of the Red Books that everyone uses.  

***

Dr. Segal finishes up his lectures on salt and water balance. We talk a little about hypovolemia (when you’ve lost too much isotonic saline in your body) and hypervolemia (when you have too much of it). The former can be caused by cholera, the latter by congestive heart failure.

This leads to the logical question a student is brave enough to ask: “Has anyone tried to tried hypervolemia by adminstering cholera toxin?”

Dr. Segal’s response: “We have a saying that two wrongs don’t make a right. Short answer: No. But there’s always a research project waiting to be done.”

Tidbit: Sometimes people wonder how they can be told they’re eating too much salt when their sodium concentration levels are so low. The reason is because they’re also drinking way too much water. This means that to treat them, we have to put them on a salt and water restricted diet. Otherwise, their heart won’t be able to handle the load.

Dr. F. John Gennari then comes in to talk about the structure of the kidney. He is different from Dr. John Gennari, the English professor at UVM. Apparently they often get each other’s emails. The lectures themselves are pretty straightforward. They’ll make a little more sense, I think, after tomorrow’s Histology. We’ll see.

Josh Pothen (UVM’s Meager Med Student)

Donate $1 to The Meager Med Student!

(from en.wikipedia.org)

I love med students, but sometimes they have no common sense.  

In the gross lab where we dissect our cadavers, we have a handwashing area connected to the actual lab area. It’s the only place with sinks in the lab, and it’s where we all go to wash up after we’re finished dissecting.  

You may remember we’ve been doing dissection on abdominal organs, like the stomach, small intestine and colon. These, of course, often contain undigested food and feces inside of them, and the outsides are also pretty nasty. Today, we were removing them from the body cavity. So as we were removing them, Betsy (i.e. Dr. Ezerman) suddenly grabs her microphone and makes an announcement.  

“Attention everyone. DO NOT wash off your viscera (i.e. organs) in the sinks!”  

As she says this, at least ten students walk out of the handwashing area of the lab carrying organs. I laugh for a minute straight. 

*** 

Thursday and Friday: two days in gross lab for our group. We’ve been very blessed throughout this course. The three bodies we’ve had have been, for the most part, exceptionally well-preserved, particularly now when other bodies are decomposing.  

Case in point: On Thursday, we were supposed to find and trace out the superior and inferior mesenteric arteries.  (For those of you not in the know, these are two arteries with LOTS of important branches going to your intestines.)  Most groups couldn’t get beautiful examples. Ours were some of the best examples of it in the class: so good that other groups have come to our table to learn the branches.  

Am I bragging? No. Just thankful.   

*** 

On Thursday, Dr. Mawe finished his lectures on how the gastrointestinal (GI) system responds to a meal. He’s been showing videos that scientists in Germany put together, where they visualized the stomach, intestines, etc. of a dog as it ate food. You can see the stomach moving, releasing contents into the small intestine, etc. Very cool. 

Tidbit of the day: If the stomach contents are acidic (since the stomach releases acid to digest food), how come you don’t burn your hand when you touch vomit? Answer: You’re not vomiting stomach contents. You’re actually vomiting food from your small intestine, where the acid gets neutralized. When you vomit, the contents get pushed from the small intestine back into your stomach, and then pushed out of your esophagus and, well, out your mouth. 

Those German scientists had a video that showed that too. The scientist at the beginning explains that they’re watching the dog after he’d ingested rat poison. 

“I don’t think I would have admitted that,” Dr. Mawe says. 

(In all fairness, I’m not sure if the scientists fed the dog the rat poison, or whether the dog accidentally ate it and they happened to visualize it.) 

*** 

On Friday, Dr. Segal returns to give lectures on how the body regulates fluid and salts in the body. This guy isn’t just a fantastic teacher and great at explainign concepts. He’s also HILARIOUS. In a Bill Nye/science-geeky sort of way. Half of my notes involved writing down funny things he said during lecture.

A sample: 

• On a slide where he used a 70-kg man with a 42% hematocrit as an example: ”Now every year, someone tells me, ‘I’m offended because you chose a man.’ I’m sorry. But nearly half of the world are men, and the other half are not men.”
• And regarding that 42% hematocrit: “Someone will tell me, ‘I’m offended that the person’s not anemic.’”
• “It’s good vs. evil. They should make a movie about it. Call it ‘Star Wars’!”
• “There’s always good vs. evil. Until you find out evil is good’s father! Crazy. But in none of those movies do they talk about the kidney!”
• “Can anyone think of a more beautiful capillary than the glomerulus?…You just don’t  make ‘em like that anymore!”
• On his explanation of how the kidney evolved: ”We’re guessing. But it’s not a bad story. I found out recently that The Wizard of Oz wasn’t true. But it’s a still a great story!”

This is part of why I love UVM.

Josh Pothen (UVM’s Meager Med Student)

Donate $1 to The Meager Med Student!

(Courtesy of www.smallvilleph.com)

7 AM. Finished eating breakfast. Decide to check Secure Exam score. Find out I passed. Thank goodness.

***

9 AM: Doctoring Skills. This week we’re learning how to do an abdominal exam. In the introductory lecture, Dr. Rubin asks whether anyone’s had various conditions. Lots of classmates have had heartburn. Only one of us has had their appendix removed. Dr. Rubin asks her why she had it taken out. “I got into a car accident in Spain,” she tells us. (Nothing major). “The hospital took it out without telling me. They wanted to take out my spleen too, but my Mom wouldn’t let them.” (Thank goodness.)

 We break to meet with our SPs. We’re also doing a male genital exam, which is a tad awkward, but goes over well. The SPs are very gracious and helpful. 

As part of it, we have to put our finger up the inguinal canal in the thigh to check for hernias. “Be careful not to go too fast, ” our SP cautions. “If you go too far, I’ll have inguinal pain for two weeks.”

Thankfully, we didn’t.  

***

Wednesdays are nice because I get done around 11 AM. There is an embryology lecture later on that day, but aside from a secure exam review, that’s about it. So I get lots of time to study. I hang out with one of the Histology TAs during lunch during her office hours. Later, I grab a classroom and study. (I like to draw diagrams on the whiteboard or pretend-teach the lecture notes.)

One of my classmates stops in and tells me a fascinating story. Turns out on his flight back to Burlington at the end of Thanksgiving break, he met a woman who had an ear infection that had affected her tensor tympani muscle.

This muscle is responsible for dampening vibrations in the ear when you’re exposed to a really loud sound. Otherwise, you’ll hear them as, well, really loud sounds. Apparently hers couldn’t do its job effectively as a result of the infection, so her hearing was very sensitive. She couldn’t even eat food without hearing her jaws chewing as a painfully loud noise.

But this also gave her the ability to hear noises that were very far away. “She could hear the neighbors talking in the house next door!” he told me. “It’s like having a superpower!”

Now I know how superhearing works. I need to check if The Science of Superman says anything about control of the tensor tympani muscle.

Josh Pothen (UVM’s Meager Med Student)

Donate $1 to The Meager Med Student!

(He knows all about the gut. from en.wikipedia.org)

I wake up and check my grades. Only the Practical exam grade is available. I passed, but just marginally. Nevertheless, I have improved since the last test. This next block is supposedly easier, so perhaps I can excel here.

***

Time to return to the Gross Lab. Since this is the start of a new block, our table’s been assigned to a new cadaver.

Our table is broken into two groups: A and B. I’m in B. While the Bs were in Histo yesterday, As did dissection. So today, a rep from Group A comes in and teaches us in Group B about their dissection and the appropriate structures from 8-9. 

At 9, we begin our work: opening the abdominal cavity to see the organs underneath, such as the small intestine, stomach, gallbladder, appendix, etc. Some of the bodies have clearly undergone surgeries where some of these organs have been removed. Since it’s mainly opening the cavity, we finish this one early.

***

Lunch time comes around. The CMDA has its Tuesday meeting, and this week they’ve asked me to lead the Bible study. I’ve prepared my own questions and lesson, and well, it goes as well as the other Bible studies. Fewer people this week, though. I realize I need to rehearse the study and questions a bit more next time.

***

1-3 lecture. Dr. Mawe talks about blood supply in the abdomen, as well as secretion, motility and control mechanisms in the gut.

There’s a lot of fascinating info here. You may have heard about the central nervous system (brain and spinal cord), but the gut has its own: the enteric nervous system. This means that when detached from the brain and the rest of the body, a piece of colon can still move something through it!

Dr. Mawe also informs us that there are more neurons in the gut than their are in the spinal cord. And just after I thought about of Stephen Colbert, he shows us an interview from the Colbert Report with  Dr. Michael Gershon, who’s written a book about the gut called “The Second Brain: A Groundbreaking New Understanding of Nervous Disorders of the Stomach and Intestines (Your Gut Has a Mind of Its Own)” .

***

In MSLG this week, we’re discussing alternative and complementary medicine. So a craniosacral therapist comes in to discuss how he presses and rotates various areas to move fascia around and relieve cranial nerves. He even gives us a demo, and what he does seems harmless, since he barely moves the body around. He tells us he takes the approach that he’s interested in whatever cures the patient, whether it’s traditional allopathic medicine or another branch of alternative medicine.

Before that, though, we had our “check-in” time, which is essentially an ice-breaker/fun intro to whatever we do. It’s my turn to lead it this week. My idea: have everyone share a song they liked, and why.

We all go around and share our choices. (Mine was “Hello Hurricane” by Switchfoot.) When it’s the group leader’s turn, she suddenly pulls out an iPod and a speaker system. She plugs it in, plays “Bang On The Drum All Day” by Todd Rundgren, and urges us all to dance along to it with her. We do. We laugh very hard.

Josh Pothen (UVM’s Meager Med Student)

Donate $1 to The Meager Med Student!

(from www.motmplus.com)

It’s time for a change. Clearly, writing on Saturdays (my only day off from studying) isn’t working. It’s time to transition to daily writing. It’ll take less time, give me my Saturdays completely off, allow for more reflection and up the number of posts on the blog. Everyone wins!

***

It’s the day after Thanksgiving break. It’s hard to get up. Thankfully, I spent part of yesterday studying, and so I feel a desire to get back and learn more.

I get to UVM around 7:30 and spend some time reviewing the Red Book (our anatomy book) and our Dissector before class at 9.

***

9 AM begins Block 3 of HSF. As I walk in, I find the customary packet of printed lecture outlines for each lecture in these next few weeks. I grab it and take a seat.

Betsy (i.e. Dr. Ezerman) welcomes us back and reminds us to do evaluations so we can see our grades. She reminds us that Block 1 was “Motors, wires and chassis”, i.e. lots of muscles and what innervates them, while Block 2 was ”Plumbing and climate control”, i.e. respiration, cardiology, the endocrine system and homeostasis.

Block 3, she informs us, is about the gastrointestinal system, i.e. “Eat, drink and be merry!”

She then introduces Dr. Haeberle and his “barf cart” to simulate the digestive system. For some reason, it looks to me like the bottom part of a concession stand cart with a bunch of scientific apparati on it.

He’s a bit of a character. To demonstrate that chewing produces a cohesive bolus (a ball of food that won’t stick to your esophagus), he ground up some food, rolled a bit of it into a ball and threw it into the audience. It did stick together after landing.

He also utters this phrase during the lecture: “Au contraire, my gastrointestinal neophyte.”

Dr. Mawe then comes to give two lectures about the impact of a meal on the gastrointestinal system. Pretty straightforward. But you gotta love a guy who shows us pictures from his colonoscopy as part of his lecture. (Not to mention an image from when his son swallowed a quarter.)

***

Lunchtime comes. This time, I take it with the Reproductive Rights interest group, who are having a seminar with free pizza. Cate Nicholas, who heads the Doctoring Skills part of HSF along with Dr. Rubin, talks with us about how she worked as an abortion care provider for several years and discusses her experience and thoughts.

Even though it was somewhat lighthearted in discussion, it still is sober to discuss. It has to be. What I walk away with is the fact that the abortion issue is much more complicated than most people on either political side realize.

***

From 1-4, I have Histology. Thankfully, most of this is redundant with what we talked about in the lecture today.

The two course TAs come in to lead this session. We love it when TAs lead because they’re concise, they hit everything we need to know for the exam and they’re super-helpful with helping us identify structures.

Watch this name: Isabella Martin. My understanding is that she’s going into pathology. If so, she will not only be an excellent pathologist, but she will also be an effective and enthusiastic teacher.

***

Afterward, I go to a classroom and spend some time teaching myself information from the RedBook. Then I go home, have dinner with my housemates, and prepare for lab tomorrow, do some Imaging and review Histology / today’s lecture notes.

 As I review the lecture outlines, I find this paraphrased phrase: “I was going to put an exclamation point here, but didn’t upon remembering the Seinfeld episode that mentioned that topic.”

I rethink whether Dr. Mawe is antic-free.

Josh Pothen (UVM’s Meager Med Student)

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