We've had clinical skills sessions where we got to listen to hearts, listen to lungs, do a musculoskeletal exam... and then last week (or two weeks ago? three? I've been so busy, I can't keep track anymore) we had our genito-urinary session. Our standardized patients for this session are people who are trained in training us to feel their inside and outside parts. "No no, my ovary is a little more to the left. There, now do you feel it?" "Keep going, my prostate is a little further back." Because they were so professional, what could have been an incredibly uncomfortable afternoon turned out to be one of the most educational experiences I've had yet in school. It was still a little uncomfortable, because after all, I was still directed to strum someone's scrotum like a guitar, and that's a weird order no matter how professional you are.
Showing posts with label meded. Show all posts
Showing posts with label meded. Show all posts
Tuesday, February 21, 2012
True Medical Student
Everyone says anatomy is the true initiation into medical school. Since we started first year with biochem, I didn't feel like a "true" medical student until day one of cutting open my cadaver about six weeks into school. However, I would like to revise this. You are not really a true medical student until your finger has been in an orifice which it has never been in before... in a [living, thinking, breathing] complete stranger.
We've had clinical skills sessions where we got to listen to hearts, listen to lungs, do a musculoskeletal exam... and then last week (or two weeks ago? three? I've been so busy, I can't keep track anymore) we had our genito-urinary session. Our standardized patients for this session are people who are trained in training us to feel their inside and outside parts. "No no, my ovary is a little more to the left. There, now do you feel it?" "Keep going, my prostate is a little further back." Because they were so professional, what could have been an incredibly uncomfortable afternoon turned out to be one of the most educational experiences I've had yet in school. It was still a little uncomfortable, because after all, I was still directed to strum someone's scrotum like a guitar, and that's a weird order no matter how professional you are.
We've had clinical skills sessions where we got to listen to hearts, listen to lungs, do a musculoskeletal exam... and then last week (or two weeks ago? three? I've been so busy, I can't keep track anymore) we had our genito-urinary session. Our standardized patients for this session are people who are trained in training us to feel their inside and outside parts. "No no, my ovary is a little more to the left. There, now do you feel it?" "Keep going, my prostate is a little further back." Because they were so professional, what could have been an incredibly uncomfortable afternoon turned out to be one of the most educational experiences I've had yet in school. It was still a little uncomfortable, because after all, I was still directed to strum someone's scrotum like a guitar, and that's a weird order no matter how professional you are.
Friday, January 27, 2012
Quotes from a Neurologist
The anti-Whipple. Sometimes, the professors "get" what it's like to be a med student a little toooo well.
It was just like the Milgram experiments:
During our lecture on how to conduct a neurological exam, an ARS (audience-response system) question read, "What's your favorite cranial nerve?" This was obviously more of an attendance question than knowledge-testing question, but interestingly enough (although besides the point), the vagus nerve won with a wide margin. The professor (jokingly?) says, "This was actually a psychological test to see how much stress is created when you ask a group of med students a question with no right answer." Sigh, he really does know us too well...
It was just like the Milgram experiments:
During our lecture on how to conduct a neurological exam, an ARS (audience-response system) question read, "What's your favorite cranial nerve?" This was obviously more of an attendance question than knowledge-testing question, but interestingly enough (although besides the point), the vagus nerve won with a wide margin. The professor (jokingly?) says, "This was actually a psychological test to see how much stress is created when you ask a group of med students a question with no right answer." Sigh, he really does know us too well...
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
Whipple Part II
This post really has nothing to do with either George Hoyt Whipple or Allen Oldfather Whipple, or the disease or procedure that are respectively named after them. But it's a continuation on the thought that professors don't always remember what it was like to be a student and how quickly (or slowly) we absorb information.
We all have clickers so that the lecture can be interactive (see picture) - the professor can put up a multiple choice question, and we all put in our responses, and then it shows us what percentage of students chose each answer. It can be used for attendance as well as just a gauge for who knows what (are we high-tech or what?!).
Some lecturers put audience response questions throughout their lecture. While I certainly have no problem with that, it drives me bonkers when professors actually get upset with us for picking the wrong answer. "Come on guys, I just went over this 10 minutes ago!" Sorry that some of us don't automatically recall every detail you tell us after hearing it once - if we did, there would be no need to study, and med school would be a breeze!
Same thing with a case discussion we had the other day on liver diseases. The four hours of liver lectures had been given the morning before, and that afternoon there had been a mandatory three-hour class for Physician's Core on how to do an abdominal exam. So, our apologies for not being able to learn everything about the liver in one evening - again, if we could do that, med school would be easy-peasy!
But during the group discussion we had about a fake patient with liver disease, the professor leading the group was so upset when we didn't have all the answers. "Guys, your test is in a week, you're making me very nervous right now." A week is a liiiiifetime for studying in med school (especially when we have a test every other week...). Like I mentioned in Whipple I, most people I know don't get a good grasp on the information until the weekend before the exam. Cut us some slack, and give us time to study the information before you assume we're never going to learn it!
We all have clickers so that the lecture can be interactive (see picture) - the professor can put up a multiple choice question, and we all put in our responses, and then it shows us what percentage of students chose each answer. It can be used for attendance as well as just a gauge for who knows what (are we high-tech or what?!).
Some lecturers put audience response questions throughout their lecture. While I certainly have no problem with that, it drives me bonkers when professors actually get upset with us for picking the wrong answer. "Come on guys, I just went over this 10 minutes ago!" Sorry that some of us don't automatically recall every detail you tell us after hearing it once - if we did, there would be no need to study, and med school would be a breeze!
Same thing with a case discussion we had the other day on liver diseases. The four hours of liver lectures had been given the morning before, and that afternoon there had been a mandatory three-hour class for Physician's Core on how to do an abdominal exam. So, our apologies for not being able to learn everything about the liver in one evening - again, if we could do that, med school would be easy-peasy!
But during the group discussion we had about a fake patient with liver disease, the professor leading the group was so upset when we didn't have all the answers. "Guys, your test is in a week, you're making me very nervous right now." A week is a liiiiifetime for studying in med school (especially when we have a test every other week...). Like I mentioned in Whipple I, most people I know don't get a good grasp on the information until the weekend before the exam. Cut us some slack, and give us time to study the information before you assume we're never going to learn it!
Friday, January 20, 2012
Whipple Part I
Unlike those lucky people who only need to hear things once to learn them, I need time to digest material before it enters my brain. In med school, that means listening to a lecture, going home and typing up all my notes I took during the lecture, and then organizing my typed notes into a way that makes sense for me - categorizing, or making charts, or combining info from related lectures, just something that makes the information my own. That, as you might imagine, takes a fair bit of time.
Because of our schedule, there's not a whole lot of extra time outside of listening to lectures and going to mandatory labs and discussions to study extra. That's fine, it is what it is - med school's supposed to be busy, right? But for me that means that I'm not going to have a really good grasp on most of the material until the weekend before the exam when we have full days (or at least half-days) to really study. And I don't think I'm alone in this.
But I don't think professors really understand that some of us need actual time to learn the information. So when we learn about something called Whipple Disease at the beginning of the week, and then later in the week we learn about something called Whipple Procedure, chances are most of us are not going to realize that we just learned about Whipple twice.
During the second lecture, when we learned about the procedure, the professor pointed out that it was actually named for a different Whipple than the disease. Rather than thinking, "My, what an interesting fact" or "There are two people named Whipple who were good enough doctors to get something named after them?!" all I could think was, "That's cute that he thinks we remember a disease that we learned three whole days ago."
Fun fact: the non-eponymous name for the Whipple procedure is pancreaticoduodenectomy - maybe the only time the eponym is actually easier to remember than the real name?
Because of our schedule, there's not a whole lot of extra time outside of listening to lectures and going to mandatory labs and discussions to study extra. That's fine, it is what it is - med school's supposed to be busy, right? But for me that means that I'm not going to have a really good grasp on most of the material until the weekend before the exam when we have full days (or at least half-days) to really study. And I don't think I'm alone in this.
 |
| George Hoyt Whipple is... |
But I don't think professors really understand that some of us need actual time to learn the information. So when we learn about something called Whipple Disease at the beginning of the week, and then later in the week we learn about something called Whipple Procedure, chances are most of us are not going to realize that we just learned about Whipple twice.
 |
| ...not the same as Allen Oldfather Whipple |
During the second lecture, when we learned about the procedure, the professor pointed out that it was actually named for a different Whipple than the disease. Rather than thinking, "My, what an interesting fact" or "There are two people named Whipple who were good enough doctors to get something named after them?!" all I could think was, "That's cute that he thinks we remember a disease that we learned three whole days ago."
Fun fact: the non-eponymous name for the Whipple procedure is pancreaticoduodenectomy - maybe the only time the eponym is actually easier to remember than the real name?
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