An Update from The Gross Lab

Most folks are interested in gross anatomy stories...and who wouldn't be right? We dissect real people which is still crazy for me to think about.

Over the past couple weeks we have opened the chest (many times referred to as "cracking the chest").  All this means is that we used a bone saw and cut through the sternum and some ribs and removed them so we could get to the heart and lungs.  If you are a heart patient, do not fret, when you have surgery they don't removed your sternum and ribs and I'm sure cardiothoracic surgeons do a far better job than we did cutting the sternum.

We looked at the lungs and cut them out to get a view of them from all sides. Our cadaver had lung cancer and believe me it was obvious, we didn't even have to ask our supervisor because the lungs were black on the back side of them and were speckled with tar on the front side.  The cancerous tissues was tough and hard (normal lungs should be fleshy colored and soft).  Our cadaver only had a small amount of normal lung tissue to see.  If you had seen these lungs you'd never want to pick up a cigarette again! It was quite a site.

Next we looked at the heart which was clearly enlarged, it looked like a nerf ball in the chest (your heart should only be the size of your fist).  Her heart was much too big which could have been do to the cancer or coronary artery disease.  We examined all the vessels on the outside of the heart (these are the coronary arteries-the arteries that supply the heart muscle itself) and we opened each of the four chambers to see valves and a variety of other structures with strange latin names.

This past week we opened up the abdominal cavity and looked at several organs: stomach,liver,large intestine (colon), small intestine, and spleen.  There is a interesting structure called the greater omentum which is simply a large fat like structure that hands like an apron over the abdominal organs.  This structure's purpose is to wall off infection.  Our cadaver's greater omentum was VERY thick which meant our lady most likely had some kind of infection prior to her death.

Our teachers kept telling us to be careful not to puncture the bowl b/c if we did would certainly know it and would have to sew it up because we would have a big mess on our hands.  My group did indeed end up puncturing the bowl but fortunately it was a tiny hole and I sutured it up quickly before we had too much of a mess.

Thanks for reading :)

Kelly

I can't even remember my kids names....

One of the guys in my class had his 4th child at the beginning of this semester and I can't figure out how he's doing it.  Today he told me he can't remember their names anymore..lol (of course he was joking, sort of)

The 7th week of class eneded last week and we have a biochem and histology test (histology = the study of various tissues at the microscopic level) tomorrow at 8am. I'm so ready for Christmas :)

Part of the reason I like writing this blog is to try to feel like I'm still connected in some way to every day life, many of my classmates and I do feel like we've been sequestered away--- still realizing of course the priveldge to be here in the first place.

Many have asked me: Is medical school fun?

Well, "fun" is probably not the word I would use to describe the experience thus far.  "Worth the work" is a better phrase, I know this craziness and fatique is temporary (even though I find myself crying on the phone to my parents frequently about how tired I am) and the end result is still real enough to me to push through.

Thanks for reading and keeping me connected to the reason my classmates and I started all this in the first place-"to serve families and friends through medicine".

Kelly

Calm After the Storm

Tonight is the calm after the storm.  We had our first Gross anatomy written and practical yesterday. They said this whole med school thing was a marathon and not a sprint and they weren't lyin'.

We started off the day yesterday with a "Developmental Anatomy" (aka embryology) exam from 10-11.  This was the test everyone would say was a "hail mary" type of exam.  Developmental is worth so little of your overall average (~1%) most people just cram a day or two before the exam and the morning of and hope for the best.  Of course you can't fail the course b/c failing this meaningless waste of time would mean you would be taking it again during the summer (the only "free" summer we have left is after our M1 year-no one wants to spend it re-taking the Developemental Anatomy)  This class is the rock in everyone's shoe .  It's difficult material, hard to learn, and it won't help your average that much even if you do well b/c its worth so little, but.....you have to pass it.

Between 11 and 12:50 we crammed in a quick lunch and tried to learn any last minute bone parts.  We kept going over all the crazy clinical names of all the brachial plexus lesions: "back packers palsy", "watier's tip", "claw hand", " cyclist handlebar neuropathy", "erb's palsy", klumpky's paralysis", and many more.

At 12:50 I went in to take the written portion of the Gross test. There were 83 questions we an alotted 1.2 minutes per question.  I had to hustle through these because I'm typically an anatalytical test taker.  I had no type to process at all, I kept telling myself "move kelly move, don't think about it, just go with it.."

After out 83 questions with 1.2 min per question we went into the hall way got a quick snack from the M2's who are awesome for providing a snack table with home-made goodies and drinks.  Taking that exam is strenuous and we all needed a little glucose before taking the lab exam.

After our snack, we headed into the cadaver Lab practical, there were 73 stations, 60 seconds per station, no time in between so we kept going for 73 minutes till we finished every station.

Needless to say, I'm glad its Tuesday.  Can't believe its only Tuesday though, feels like we've done a week worth of work already-ha they never said it would be easy....and its not, but I know its worth it.

Thanks for reading.

Salt and Light,

Kelly

HILARIOUS...

MEDICAL SCHOOL VIDEO

M1 year long schedule

If you're an aspiring medical student out there and ever wondered what a week or two in medical school would look like- I thought I would attach the M1 year long schedule to give any pre-meds out there a view of what we do each day :) Enjoy. Click the link.

http://studentservices.umc.edu/documents/M1MasterSchedule.pdf

Muscles, Nerves, and Bones Everywhere

The Third week of medical school is officially over and I'm about to embark on the fourth week. I started off my labor day in the Gross Anatomy Lab at 9:00 this morning (saturday I was there at 8:00am) to dissect what the book calls the cubital fossa....aka the elbow---they should just call it the elbow.

Nonetheless, we took skin and fat off and looked at the arteries in the fold of your elbow along with the tendons of the bicep and the median nerve.

I usually let the boys in my group do most of the cutting-they like that, although I do plenty of fat removal myself. I did find the cadaver "hugging" me today. I had swung her arm out to get a better look at the brachial plexus (this is the huge bundle of nerves that goes down the arm that orginates in the arm pit) and  before I noticed it my cadaver had her arm around my waist. I guess she knew I needed a hug this morning :)

Best wishes to each of you on your holiday weekend-hopefully you got a hug from someone today-I sure did :)


Salt and Light,

 Kelly

They never said it would be easy....

Well they never said it would be easy and it is definitely not easy.

My first day was all day lectures of Biochemistry and Histology and I thought this isn't terrible yet.

My second day was more biochemistry and more histology and I was starting to feel the overwhelming creeping behind me and tapping on my shoulder

My third day I was calling home crying saying I can't do this

My fourth day I cried a little more, but starting to realize ever other girl in my class had also cried the night before and some even on the second day which made me feel a little bit better

By Friday (my fifth day) I realized my whole class felt the same way I did so I began to realize it we are all in this together, we will all suffer together and we will ALL get through it together.

On my seventh day I took my first test in Biochemistry and in Histology and I am pleased to say I did fine in both and I couldn't be more thankful to start out this crazy ride on a good note.

This past wednesday I met my cadaver for the first time. My cadaver is a female who has graciously donated herself so I along with my peers could have a up close and person experience with the human body-muscles, organs, and all. It does get a little personal when you see that some of the cadavers have tatooes and some of the women still have thier toe nails painted but then you rememeber they wanted thier bodies to have a purpose after death and you're grateful to have the "gross anatomy" (what they like to call the holy grail of medical school) experience.

I am highly sensitive to the fomalin (formaldehyde) used to preserve the bodies. My eyes water, my nose burns, and my throat burns from the fumes. I continually am turning my head away from the body to get air. A few of my classmates got a little weezy the first dissection where we removed the skin from the body. I seemed to be able to keep in together regarding the visuals, its the fumes that seem to bother me more than anything.

I am glad to say I have survived 2 full weeks, it feels like I've been doing this for two month we've covered so much material. On the same note it feel like I've known my classmates for much longer than 2 weeks also, and we're definitely becoming a tight knit group.

Salt and Light,

Kelly

I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength.