Hospital Day and Surgical Skills!

I'm pretty stoked to finally write about a part of medical school that doesn't involve books and long hours of studying! Most of the first year was simply reading, studying and taking exam after exam after exam. Not a whole lot of excitement to post on a blog. The 2nd year still has lots of exams and lots of studying but we have other more clinically applicable activities going on as well. The first happened on tuesday. We had hospital day where residency directors came from their hospitals from all parts of the country to recruit us to consider their program for residency and rotations. As you can see I was dressed up in my nice white coat along with the snazzy outfit that was given to me to wear for Jami's wedding reception. I gotta give a shout out to Jami because I got more compliments on how I looked with the tie and outfit than I can ever remember getting on a single occasion. One director(it was a lady) even asked me if I dressed myself that morning or if someone else helped me put it together! haha. Anyway, we had over 100 representatives from hospitals in several states including Iowa, Illinois, Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, Missouri, South dakota, Wyoming, Idaho, Colorado, Arizona, New York, Oklahoma, Texas, Virginia, West Virginia and South Carolina. It was cool to see so many respected hospitals there hoping that we would consider their residency program or do a rotation with them. It also provided alot of valuable information and about these programs and good advice on how to prepare. But it was also a poignant reminder to me that in about a year and a half I will have to choose a specialty and make a decision as to where I will be doing residency! Crazy! I don't know what I like or do not like yet! Even more crazy is the fact that in 4 months I have to decide where to do my 3rd and 4th year rotations. I can choose to stay in Des Moines or I can go elsewhere and commit to a hospital for the third year and the following year rotate at potential places I want to do my residency. If I had to decide today, I would choose to go to the Doctor's Hospital in Columbus, Ohio. I've been itching to move to a bigger city, there is a temple in columbus, a couple of singles wards, college football, not to mention that the hospital is top notch. A close second choice would be to the Henry Ford hospital just outside of Detroit. I will be finding out in January where I'm headed after the school holds it's lottery, where each student gives their top 3 choices and then a lottery is done to see who goes where. I don't know all the details yet but will find out more in November.

The other exciting happening at med school is that I started my surgical skills class two weeks ago! The picture above is the device they gave us to learn how to tie the surgeon's knot and other important knots necessary for suturing. We started off with a nice big rope to get the hang of it and then progressed the next week to the real stuff!

What you see here is a needle holder, forceps, cutting needle, and a nylon non-absorbable suture. The pad is a represtation of skin with the epidermis, dermis and sub cutaneous layers all there. I'm practicing as much as time will allow between studying for my other classes so I'll be ready for rotations(which isn't as much as i'd like sadly). During the lab, we practiced cutting incisions on pig's feet and learned different techniques for how to do sutures on various parts of the body. It was really cool! We also learned how to put in a catheter and a nasogastric tube.

The previous week we learned how to start an IV, and practiced putting one in another student and had them practice on us. I was very nervous to have someone poke me for their first time ever and was worried that I might pass out! Luckily it went just fine...although as my partner gave me the shot to numb up my hand before putting in the IV, he was shaking like crazy and as he stuck my hand he dropped the syringe as he tried to push in the plunger which caused the needle to push up into my skin...but other than that it was no big deal! There were others who passed out but I was not one of them!

What a week...

A good way to tell how stressful and busy a week is for my roomate and I is to look at our sink and see how many dishes are done...or not done. Normally we are good at keeping up on it...except during the heavy test weeks. This past week was the most exhausting one I have had so far. I had a physiology exam on Wednesday, a Physical Diagnosis S.P.A.L. (Simulated Patient Assesment Lab) on Thursday, and a Pathology exam on Friday. I spent an average of 10-12 hours studying a day and got about 4 hours of sleep each night( I tried to get 8 hours but my mind kept thinking about the next day's exam which hasn't really happened until this week). Physiology was all about the kidneys and G.I. which is actually quite fascinating, but when there are three exams in a row we turn into memorizing bots rather than being able to take the time to get a solid understanding of it all. But if anyone wants to know the mechanism behind vomiting, digestion or defecation i'll gladly tell you...mmmm. And did you know how much effect our kidney's have on our blood pressure? Anyway, my next exam, the Spal is my opportunity to take a history and perform a physical on a real person. I feel bad for the actors who sign up to let us practice on them as we learn to use tongue blades in their mouths and stick our scopes in their ears and up to their eyes...hopefully they are paid well! :) The history taking isn't too bad but it was a little intimidating to have a doctor in the room grading me on my techniques to inspect the eyes, ears, nose and throat. We are penalized for even the smallest error and are graded on everything from how we greet the patient to how I hold the otoscope and ophthalmoscope(what I use to look into the ear canal and eyes). I have gained an appreciation for how much doctors need to understand to perform a basic physical. But it really is fun to apply the knowledge and be able to put the puzzle pieces together to figure out why someone is sick or why the body is acting the way it is. Pathology was dealing with the basic cell function, inflammation reactions, and blood clotting. I'm excited for the next block when we learn about autopy's...a little morbid I know. But the reward for getting through this week was flying home to Utah! I LOVE seeing my family! I got to see my amazing sister Emily star in her high school musical "Will Rogers Follies" which turned out to be absolutely amazing and Emily stole the show! I also got to party with my nephew Zander for his birthday celebration today...he's a big 4 year old. I'm excited to allow my brain to relax this week and spend time with family, go into the mountains for rock climbing and four wheeling, reading a fun novel called vector by Robin Cook, and then vegging out and watching the NCAA tournament and seeing BYU make a deep run! Spring breaks are heaven sent and it's the perfect remedy for me to stay sane! Life is officially great!