Stem Cells and Starry Skies

So in Cardio, whenever I would inevitably freak out about information overload and my impending failure (which never happens thankfully), my friend Wendy would remind me that "It's just a pump." , So if I had to sum up the other blocks, Pulm was "just breathing," and Renal was "just filtering." I guess I could say Heme/Onc is "just a stem cell," but man do stem cells do a lot of different things. Like become cancer, or all of your blood cells.

I like art. And I like pathology (which most of my classmates would probably judge me for). They both involve looking at images and appreciating the thing that makes the image special. Pathologists like to compare most things to food. Worst example: gross (as in visable with the naked eye, but also nasty) pericarditis looks like "bread on butter." Only a pathologist would make me cringe at the thought of buttered toast. But in Burkitt's Lymphoma, the pathologists decided to compare the lymph node biopsy to a "Starry Sky." I like this comparison, and I love Van Gogh (I know, Starry NIGHT, but similar!), so I decided to share this random bit of pathology with my few blog readers. So you can see the "Starry Sky" - the white spaces, or "stars" are the tingible-body macrophages which have more cytoplasm than the numerous cancerous cells that have round, dark nuclei, creating the purple-y "sky."

Real Starry Sky!

So what is Burkitt's Lymphma? It is an aggressive cancer (Non Hodgkin Lymphoma) of the lymph system that can be caused by Epstein Barr Virus (AKA mono). It is common in equatorial Africa. Sad stuff, but cool pathology.

Back to Heme/Onc study! Happy post-Election day - I hope you are all as happy as I am with a majority of the outcomes (yay human rights and Obama!).

From a classmate: SECOND YEAR IN FLASHCARDS