Med School Tricks and Tricky Topics

The Trick...
We learned a fun trick in med school! I taught it to some middle-schoolers recently and they loved it, so I decided to share it with my blog readers. Not saying that my readers have the same mentality as middle-schoolers, but it passed the likability test. Anyway here it is:

1. Locate a blank piece of paper.
2. Draw 2 dots about 5 inches apart.
3. Close your left eye.
4. Hold the left dot in front of your right eye and stare at it.
5. Slowly move the paper away from your right eye, constantly staring at the left dot.
6. Eventually, the right dot will disappear (but only if you don't look at it, you can only look at the left dot!).
7. You just found your blind spot!

Here is a picture of an eyeball (ew - tangent - I hate eyeballs, they creep me out. I will not be an opthamologist. Over the course of med school, I need to eventually decide what I want to do with my MD. Every once and a while I figure out I hate certain fields of medicine. Like Psychiatry and anything to do with teeth/eyes. I will keep you updated on my list of No-Way-In-Hell Specialties, as well as the Maybe Specialties - like Gynecology, Family Medicine, and Internal Medicine.)

See the thing called the optic nerve? It's actually an outgrowth of your brain that sends what you see back for processing. While it's awesome, it takes up space on the retina (where the images that you see are projected). So the spot where the nerves that do the seeing collect and project back, there is no vision. Luckily, you will never notice it unless you are looking for it with my fun trick - it is in your peripheral vision, and your brain fills in the spot for you.

The Tricky Topics
Last month, we started Neuroscience, Head and Neck Anatomy, and Psychology. Tomorrow, we start Addiction Medicine. These are tricky topics, not only because the brain is a pretty small structure with a lot going on inside, but also because scientists haven't really figured these topics out. They know where most nerves go and generally what they do, but there are a lot of complexities that are unexplained until further notice - making a lot of what we learn somewhat fuzzy around the edges.

Also, skulls are really complicated. See photo. We have to know what the skull parts are named, all of the holes, and what goes through them.

It's overwhelming but I do like Neuroscience, so I guess I'll leave Neurology as a Maybe Specialty...

Beware the Drape Monster

I always think I am finally all grown up and professional, and then I do something like this...

So at 5pm on Thursdays, I am usually pretty loopy. I have been on the go all week, and all of the relaxation I had stored up from the weekend is long gone. I am sick of sitting in the library and want to do something fun. Oh, except that I also have a two hour class called Physical Diagnosis (PD) on Thursday nights. In PD, I learn how to actually be a doctor by practicing physical exams that help us determine signs and symptoms of disease. 

By the way (I learned this last week) - a sign is something that we figure out based on our medical exam. A symptom is something the patient reports. They sometimes overlap, but  I didn't realize they meant different things until a professor decided to mention that. 

And while I'm on a tangent, I might as continue go to another one - professors often forget that we don't know the basics, so they will skip over/ use abbreviations / talk really fast about things they have heard tons of times, but we may have never learned them (#medschoolproblems).

Back to my story...in Physical Diagnosis last week, my partner and I practiced draping. My whole med school class seems to be afraid of draping. Draping is using the "johnny" (gown they give you at the doctor's office) and a big (napkin-like) cloth that they place on your lap to maintain the patient's decency during your exam. We weren't taught how to drape, and when doing some of the exams it is hard to keep the patient appropriately covered. For example, during the heart exam, you have to touch and listen to the heart at the "left 5th intercostal space at the midclavicular line." This spot of the body is pretty much right below the patient's nipple. So you have to practice covering a potentially female patients breasts while reaching up under their breast to listen to their heart. (The course directors told us to ask our patient to lift their breast out of the way - awkward!)

Think about the last time you went to the doctor. They probably draped you appropriately. It seemed so simple, right? As a physician in training, I can tell you that it's not as easy as it seems, and it takes a lot of practice to not be awkward and clumsy with the draping.

So my PD partner was practicing draping with me using the napkin-like drapes that they provided to us. By the end of the exam, my drape had ripped in 5 places. So rather than throwing it away, I decided to become the Drape Monster. Like I said before, by Thursday night, being cooped up in one building all week has taken it's toll. I had a case of what my friend Sara calls "Med School Fever."

Here is a picture of me, the Drape Monster:

But I feel that by mocking the drape, I reduced it to something that I no longer fear. Now, rather than the horrible awkward drape, it is just some silly piece of fabric that I need to use when I am (eventually) a doctor.