It has been a little while since I've been able to post, but the work, true to form, is piling up. I have only been in school for 2 full weeks (tomorrow begins the 3rd), and exam time is already looming. There is so much content to be tested on, but unlike any academic endeavors any of us have experienced before, we actually have to remember what we learn...how else would we even know where to begin if one of our patients came in with "winged scapula" to deduct that this patient could have paralysis of the Dorsal scapula nerve, which supplies the Rhomboid muscles, allowing them to help hold the scapula flat against the thorax? (You can tell that I was just trying to review the material as I typed). The nice thing, though, is that everything is very intuitive, and all of the structures are grouped regionally, so rather than learning the ENTIRE muscular system at once, or the ENTIRE nervous system at once, we learn only the structures of the region we are studying. That being said, this way of tackling Anatomy is also very difficult, and requires a great deal of skill when it comes to synthesizing the material, because we are dealing with all of the bony landmarks, muscles, joints, ligaments, nerves, arteries, veins, and lymphatic drainage of the upper extremity.
It is sometimes hard to remember that I also have 3 other classes that require attention, too, because Anatomy really takes up most of my time. But, PA school is all about balance, and how to keep several things going at once. I thought I was good at multi-tasking before this, but this is the biggest challenge to that thought ever.
At this moment in time, a lot of us, including myself, occasionally have to remind ourselves why we're here: to eventually become the great PAs we envisioned ourselves being, and attempt to make our way in the world.
Sunday, June 20, 2010
Tuesday, June 8, 2010
Seeing what few others see...
Today was quite a day. In addition to Anatomy lecture this morning at 8, and another class called "Intro. to Clinical Reasoning and Problem-Based Learning," we had our first Anatomy lab today at 1pm. I can honestly say that I wasn't able to pay attention much to any of this morning's classes, because 1pm was looming in my mind. I was so pre-occupied with the thought of being in my first cadaver lab, that I couldn't even focus.
I am not a squeamish person in the slightest (as my family can certainly attest to, considering I have often found it difficult to NOT discuss the nasty, but interesting things I learned about in school), but my emotions were swirling in my brain today, and I was so nervous about actually seeing the body for the first time today. Even when we went up to the 5th floor of the education building (where the Gross Anatomy lab is housed) I started getting a little nervous. But, considering the fact that I have 10 weeks of many long hours in the lab, I got over my nerves very quickly. There is not a whole lot of time to contemplate being nervous, although there were moments of it throughout the afternoon.
The cadaver lab itself is beautiful. Since the Anschutz Medical Campus is completely brand-new, all of the facilities (barring the old Army hospital, where President Eisenhower stayed when he had a heart attack) are pristine, and gorgeous. The anatomy lab has big, bright windows that look out to the old army hospital, fondly known at "Building 500," and they let a lot of light in, which is nice, since a good chunk of the lovely summer weather will be going away during lab times. There are 5 interconnecting lab areas, so we can freely walk about the long hallway of cadavers, and observe what others are seeing, and the techniques others are using.
Immediately upon walking into the lab this afternoon, my nose let me know right away that there was no other place on campus that this area could be except the Gross Anatomy lab. Surprisingly though, I adapted quickly to the smell.
We proceeded to our designated humidor, sort of a large, stainless-steel tray with a lid that folds down. We opened the lid, and the black body bag with our cadaver was inside. After unzipping the body bag, we figured out that we had a female cadaver, and the tag on the table said the date of death was July of 2009. The hands, feet, and face are covered by gauze bandages for now, which definitely helped with the emotional disconnect that had to happen before I was ok to dive in and cut.
During the entire lab session today, I kept thinking about how amazing we are as a species, and being able to see it first-hand really reinforces that. Even though I felt a little emotional when lab was all over tonight, when I was actually doing the dissection, I was completely fascinated by the structures, and actually being able to see what I've been learning about and studying throughout my life as a student...it's pretty amazing.
As you can tell, today was a day for Anatomy, and nothing much else happened today. I have to study and read ahead for lecture tomorrow and Thursday, and prepare for what we will be dissecting on Thursday, when we will encounter the upper extremity.
I am not a squeamish person in the slightest (as my family can certainly attest to, considering I have often found it difficult to NOT discuss the nasty, but interesting things I learned about in school), but my emotions were swirling in my brain today, and I was so nervous about actually seeing the body for the first time today. Even when we went up to the 5th floor of the education building (where the Gross Anatomy lab is housed) I started getting a little nervous. But, considering the fact that I have 10 weeks of many long hours in the lab, I got over my nerves very quickly. There is not a whole lot of time to contemplate being nervous, although there were moments of it throughout the afternoon.
The cadaver lab itself is beautiful. Since the Anschutz Medical Campus is completely brand-new, all of the facilities (barring the old Army hospital, where President Eisenhower stayed when he had a heart attack) are pristine, and gorgeous. The anatomy lab has big, bright windows that look out to the old army hospital, fondly known at "Building 500," and they let a lot of light in, which is nice, since a good chunk of the lovely summer weather will be going away during lab times. There are 5 interconnecting lab areas, so we can freely walk about the long hallway of cadavers, and observe what others are seeing, and the techniques others are using.
Immediately upon walking into the lab this afternoon, my nose let me know right away that there was no other place on campus that this area could be except the Gross Anatomy lab. Surprisingly though, I adapted quickly to the smell.
We proceeded to our designated humidor, sort of a large, stainless-steel tray with a lid that folds down. We opened the lid, and the black body bag with our cadaver was inside. After unzipping the body bag, we figured out that we had a female cadaver, and the tag on the table said the date of death was July of 2009. The hands, feet, and face are covered by gauze bandages for now, which definitely helped with the emotional disconnect that had to happen before I was ok to dive in and cut.
During the entire lab session today, I kept thinking about how amazing we are as a species, and being able to see it first-hand really reinforces that. Even though I felt a little emotional when lab was all over tonight, when I was actually doing the dissection, I was completely fascinated by the structures, and actually being able to see what I've been learning about and studying throughout my life as a student...it's pretty amazing.
As you can tell, today was a day for Anatomy, and nothing much else happened today. I have to study and read ahead for lecture tomorrow and Thursday, and prepare for what we will be dissecting on Thursday, when we will encounter the upper extremity.
Sunday, June 6, 2010
Tomorrow is the big day!
The first day of classes is finally here! It's been almost 6 months since I found out I had been accepted, and those 6 months have been the longest of my life in many respects. They have been long months of anxiously waiting for school to start, of worrying about whether I could handle the challenges being in PA school would present, of being so excited to finally be living out my dream...just 6 very long months.
Now that it is here, I have gotten over MOST of my insecurities, and am totally ready to dive into the insane workload of the summer semester. I have 4 classes, but undoubtedly, the one that will dominate my life this summer is Human Anatomy. Lecture is scheduled 4 days a week, Monday-Thursday from 8-10am, with the corresponding lab scheduled 2 days a week, Tuesday and Thursday from 1-5pm. That being said, I will certainly be spending more that 8 hours a week in the Anatomy lab, considering there is so much material to learn, and not nearly enough time in that 8 hours per week to finish the required dissections, and actually retain what the heck we are seeing inside. Just the amount of books I have had to purchase for Anatomy alone (8 in total) bears some idea of the kind of workload I am about to undertake. None the less, I am so excited, a true testament to how much I love medicine, and the great extent to which my life is dominated by it. I willingly commit my time to reading books that many wouldn't touch, unless threatened, and I actually find everything I read fascinating.
That being said, any of you out there reading can probably already foresee the future, when, at the end of the summer, I will be blogging about how much I cannot stand Anatomy, and how happy I will be to be done with that class forever. But, being fresh-faced and not tainted by late nights, too much coffee, too-little sleep, and long hours in the cadaver lab, I can still stand here and honestly say how much I love Anatomy.
That is all for now, since I actually have to set the alarm and return to the academic schedule. At least I have a pot of coffee ready to brew the minute that alarm goes off at 5:45 tomorrow morning.
Now that it is here, I have gotten over MOST of my insecurities, and am totally ready to dive into the insane workload of the summer semester. I have 4 classes, but undoubtedly, the one that will dominate my life this summer is Human Anatomy. Lecture is scheduled 4 days a week, Monday-Thursday from 8-10am, with the corresponding lab scheduled 2 days a week, Tuesday and Thursday from 1-5pm. That being said, I will certainly be spending more that 8 hours a week in the Anatomy lab, considering there is so much material to learn, and not nearly enough time in that 8 hours per week to finish the required dissections, and actually retain what the heck we are seeing inside. Just the amount of books I have had to purchase for Anatomy alone (8 in total) bears some idea of the kind of workload I am about to undertake. None the less, I am so excited, a true testament to how much I love medicine, and the great extent to which my life is dominated by it. I willingly commit my time to reading books that many wouldn't touch, unless threatened, and I actually find everything I read fascinating.
That being said, any of you out there reading can probably already foresee the future, when, at the end of the summer, I will be blogging about how much I cannot stand Anatomy, and how happy I will be to be done with that class forever. But, being fresh-faced and not tainted by late nights, too much coffee, too-little sleep, and long hours in the cadaver lab, I can still stand here and honestly say how much I love Anatomy.
That is all for now, since I actually have to set the alarm and return to the academic schedule. At least I have a pot of coffee ready to brew the minute that alarm goes off at 5:45 tomorrow morning.
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Sunday, June 20, 2010
And it begins piling up...
It has been a little while since I've been able to post, but the work, true to form, is piling up. I have only been in school for 2 full weeks (tomorrow begins the 3rd), and exam time is already looming. There is so much content to be tested on, but unlike any academic endeavors any of us have experienced before, we actually have to remember what we learn...how else would we even know where to begin if one of our patients came in with "winged scapula" to deduct that this patient could have paralysis of the Dorsal scapula nerve, which supplies the Rhomboid muscles, allowing them to help hold the scapula flat against the thorax? (You can tell that I was just trying to review the material as I typed). The nice thing, though, is that everything is very intuitive, and all of the structures are grouped regionally, so rather than learning the ENTIRE muscular system at once, or the ENTIRE nervous system at once, we learn only the structures of the region we are studying. That being said, this way of tackling Anatomy is also very difficult, and requires a great deal of skill when it comes to synthesizing the material, because we are dealing with all of the bony landmarks, muscles, joints, ligaments, nerves, arteries, veins, and lymphatic drainage of the upper extremity.
It is sometimes hard to remember that I also have 3 other classes that require attention, too, because Anatomy really takes up most of my time. But, PA school is all about balance, and how to keep several things going at once. I thought I was good at multi-tasking before this, but this is the biggest challenge to that thought ever.
At this moment in time, a lot of us, including myself, occasionally have to remind ourselves why we're here: to eventually become the great PAs we envisioned ourselves being, and attempt to make our way in the world.
It is sometimes hard to remember that I also have 3 other classes that require attention, too, because Anatomy really takes up most of my time. But, PA school is all about balance, and how to keep several things going at once. I thought I was good at multi-tasking before this, but this is the biggest challenge to that thought ever.
At this moment in time, a lot of us, including myself, occasionally have to remind ourselves why we're here: to eventually become the great PAs we envisioned ourselves being, and attempt to make our way in the world.
Tuesday, June 8, 2010
Seeing what few others see...
Today was quite a day. In addition to Anatomy lecture this morning at 8, and another class called "Intro. to Clinical Reasoning and Problem-Based Learning," we had our first Anatomy lab today at 1pm. I can honestly say that I wasn't able to pay attention much to any of this morning's classes, because 1pm was looming in my mind. I was so pre-occupied with the thought of being in my first cadaver lab, that I couldn't even focus.
I am not a squeamish person in the slightest (as my family can certainly attest to, considering I have often found it difficult to NOT discuss the nasty, but interesting things I learned about in school), but my emotions were swirling in my brain today, and I was so nervous about actually seeing the body for the first time today. Even when we went up to the 5th floor of the education building (where the Gross Anatomy lab is housed) I started getting a little nervous. But, considering the fact that I have 10 weeks of many long hours in the lab, I got over my nerves very quickly. There is not a whole lot of time to contemplate being nervous, although there were moments of it throughout the afternoon.
The cadaver lab itself is beautiful. Since the Anschutz Medical Campus is completely brand-new, all of the facilities (barring the old Army hospital, where President Eisenhower stayed when he had a heart attack) are pristine, and gorgeous. The anatomy lab has big, bright windows that look out to the old army hospital, fondly known at "Building 500," and they let a lot of light in, which is nice, since a good chunk of the lovely summer weather will be going away during lab times. There are 5 interconnecting lab areas, so we can freely walk about the long hallway of cadavers, and observe what others are seeing, and the techniques others are using.
Immediately upon walking into the lab this afternoon, my nose let me know right away that there was no other place on campus that this area could be except the Gross Anatomy lab. Surprisingly though, I adapted quickly to the smell.
We proceeded to our designated humidor, sort of a large, stainless-steel tray with a lid that folds down. We opened the lid, and the black body bag with our cadaver was inside. After unzipping the body bag, we figured out that we had a female cadaver, and the tag on the table said the date of death was July of 2009. The hands, feet, and face are covered by gauze bandages for now, which definitely helped with the emotional disconnect that had to happen before I was ok to dive in and cut.
During the entire lab session today, I kept thinking about how amazing we are as a species, and being able to see it first-hand really reinforces that. Even though I felt a little emotional when lab was all over tonight, when I was actually doing the dissection, I was completely fascinated by the structures, and actually being able to see what I've been learning about and studying throughout my life as a student...it's pretty amazing.
As you can tell, today was a day for Anatomy, and nothing much else happened today. I have to study and read ahead for lecture tomorrow and Thursday, and prepare for what we will be dissecting on Thursday, when we will encounter the upper extremity.
I am not a squeamish person in the slightest (as my family can certainly attest to, considering I have often found it difficult to NOT discuss the nasty, but interesting things I learned about in school), but my emotions were swirling in my brain today, and I was so nervous about actually seeing the body for the first time today. Even when we went up to the 5th floor of the education building (where the Gross Anatomy lab is housed) I started getting a little nervous. But, considering the fact that I have 10 weeks of many long hours in the lab, I got over my nerves very quickly. There is not a whole lot of time to contemplate being nervous, although there were moments of it throughout the afternoon.
The cadaver lab itself is beautiful. Since the Anschutz Medical Campus is completely brand-new, all of the facilities (barring the old Army hospital, where President Eisenhower stayed when he had a heart attack) are pristine, and gorgeous. The anatomy lab has big, bright windows that look out to the old army hospital, fondly known at "Building 500," and they let a lot of light in, which is nice, since a good chunk of the lovely summer weather will be going away during lab times. There are 5 interconnecting lab areas, so we can freely walk about the long hallway of cadavers, and observe what others are seeing, and the techniques others are using.
Immediately upon walking into the lab this afternoon, my nose let me know right away that there was no other place on campus that this area could be except the Gross Anatomy lab. Surprisingly though, I adapted quickly to the smell.
We proceeded to our designated humidor, sort of a large, stainless-steel tray with a lid that folds down. We opened the lid, and the black body bag with our cadaver was inside. After unzipping the body bag, we figured out that we had a female cadaver, and the tag on the table said the date of death was July of 2009. The hands, feet, and face are covered by gauze bandages for now, which definitely helped with the emotional disconnect that had to happen before I was ok to dive in and cut.
During the entire lab session today, I kept thinking about how amazing we are as a species, and being able to see it first-hand really reinforces that. Even though I felt a little emotional when lab was all over tonight, when I was actually doing the dissection, I was completely fascinated by the structures, and actually being able to see what I've been learning about and studying throughout my life as a student...it's pretty amazing.
As you can tell, today was a day for Anatomy, and nothing much else happened today. I have to study and read ahead for lecture tomorrow and Thursday, and prepare for what we will be dissecting on Thursday, when we will encounter the upper extremity.
Sunday, June 6, 2010
Tomorrow is the big day!
The first day of classes is finally here! It's been almost 6 months since I found out I had been accepted, and those 6 months have been the longest of my life in many respects. They have been long months of anxiously waiting for school to start, of worrying about whether I could handle the challenges being in PA school would present, of being so excited to finally be living out my dream...just 6 very long months.
Now that it is here, I have gotten over MOST of my insecurities, and am totally ready to dive into the insane workload of the summer semester. I have 4 classes, but undoubtedly, the one that will dominate my life this summer is Human Anatomy. Lecture is scheduled 4 days a week, Monday-Thursday from 8-10am, with the corresponding lab scheduled 2 days a week, Tuesday and Thursday from 1-5pm. That being said, I will certainly be spending more that 8 hours a week in the Anatomy lab, considering there is so much material to learn, and not nearly enough time in that 8 hours per week to finish the required dissections, and actually retain what the heck we are seeing inside. Just the amount of books I have had to purchase for Anatomy alone (8 in total) bears some idea of the kind of workload I am about to undertake. None the less, I am so excited, a true testament to how much I love medicine, and the great extent to which my life is dominated by it. I willingly commit my time to reading books that many wouldn't touch, unless threatened, and I actually find everything I read fascinating.
That being said, any of you out there reading can probably already foresee the future, when, at the end of the summer, I will be blogging about how much I cannot stand Anatomy, and how happy I will be to be done with that class forever. But, being fresh-faced and not tainted by late nights, too much coffee, too-little sleep, and long hours in the cadaver lab, I can still stand here and honestly say how much I love Anatomy.
That is all for now, since I actually have to set the alarm and return to the academic schedule. At least I have a pot of coffee ready to brew the minute that alarm goes off at 5:45 tomorrow morning.
Now that it is here, I have gotten over MOST of my insecurities, and am totally ready to dive into the insane workload of the summer semester. I have 4 classes, but undoubtedly, the one that will dominate my life this summer is Human Anatomy. Lecture is scheduled 4 days a week, Monday-Thursday from 8-10am, with the corresponding lab scheduled 2 days a week, Tuesday and Thursday from 1-5pm. That being said, I will certainly be spending more that 8 hours a week in the Anatomy lab, considering there is so much material to learn, and not nearly enough time in that 8 hours per week to finish the required dissections, and actually retain what the heck we are seeing inside. Just the amount of books I have had to purchase for Anatomy alone (8 in total) bears some idea of the kind of workload I am about to undertake. None the less, I am so excited, a true testament to how much I love medicine, and the great extent to which my life is dominated by it. I willingly commit my time to reading books that many wouldn't touch, unless threatened, and I actually find everything I read fascinating.
That being said, any of you out there reading can probably already foresee the future, when, at the end of the summer, I will be blogging about how much I cannot stand Anatomy, and how happy I will be to be done with that class forever. But, being fresh-faced and not tainted by late nights, too much coffee, too-little sleep, and long hours in the cadaver lab, I can still stand here and honestly say how much I love Anatomy.
That is all for now, since I actually have to set the alarm and return to the academic schedule. At least I have a pot of coffee ready to brew the minute that alarm goes off at 5:45 tomorrow morning.
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