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...