Tuesday, January 5, 2010

Goodbye, Christmas...

Vacation is gone as quickly as it arrived. Back to school yesterday, started with a lovely histology lecture. I continue to wonder if that's a "real class" or not... If it's made up, can it please return to make believe land? It's taking too much of my time (especially when it's at 8 AM).

Other than histo, physiology is the only major component of my life that is obsessed with medical school right now. We're right in the middle of cardiac phys and learning how to read EKG's. Pretty cool stuff. Actual doctoring material, as opposed to the day to day facts we normally learn just to regurgitate for a test. Although I suppose we'll use those someday as well.

Today we had intro to physiology lab. Apparently, we're going to work on an anesthetized and intubated pig in the upcoming lab. A 50-60 pound pig. We'll be doing cut downs, manipulating his cardiac physiological states, then cracking his chest and resuscitating him until we're bored (prof's words exactly). Then we will "dispose of them" in the freezer. This is the part that made me slightly queasy. First he tells us, "be careful, this isn't a cadaver", but then at the end, we're going to "dispose of it" which means at some point between point A and point Z, said pig is going to succumb to his demise at the hands of my lab partners. I'm really, REALLY glad I've got a couple weeks to prepare for this.

And we just thought gross lab was eye-opening and shock-worthy. Welcome to med school, year 1 act 2.

3 comments:

tinyletters said...

The pig lab was fun. You get to hold a beating heart in your hand and touch working lungs... Just leave before they "dispose" and it won't be bad... that's what I did.

doona said...

cmooooon!!

physio was the best part of med school!!

and histo is just...well....collateral damage ;Pp

Ewok said...

histology is one of those classes that will mean nothing to you unless you do pathology (ie-me). honestly, you'll never see that stuff again. Maybe heme onc, but unless you use a microscope you can flush.

pig lab was great. I stayed for the "disposal" and all they do is basically put them down like you would a family pet. I got to watch the heart fibrillate. Pretty wicked. And you get to practice sutures if you ask.