Lately

Wow, these last few weeks have really flown by.  Can't believe it's already February.  Well, here's what's been going on here in Florida...

Medicine
Ob/Gyn.  Learned about fetal development and saw a lifetime's worth of STD-ridden who-haws.  Got an 87% on the exam.  Moving on.

Surgery.  No, didn't get to perform any...yet.  I'll get to observe one for another class, but that's not until March. But I did get to learn the surgical management of Necrotizing Fasciitis (surgical debridement of affected tissue) as well as how to treat compartment syndrome in a burn patient (escharotomy).  I contemplated posting pictures of both of these but thought I would spare you the nausea/vomiting.  Pretty gruesome stuff.  However, I do encourage you to google some pics.  Highly educational.  91% on this test. Go me :)

Pediatrics. We just wrapped up the lectures in this section. Our exam is tomorrow. I should be studying, but I needed a break. The lectures weren't all that interesting, but I can't tell you how excited I am to work with kids! I've always been more at home talking to kids than adults.

Neurology.  Only 3 lectures into this one, so I don't really have much to report there.

If you're counting, yes, that's 3 sections completed and another started in only 4.5 weeks.

Clinical Procedures
This is a cool class.  It only consists of 1 lecture an a lab each week, but this is where we do the fun stuff.  Like this...

We also started learning how to tie suture knots.  We even got our own little suture practice kit, complete with fake skin.

Hospital Practicum
Completed my second real live patient History and Physical last night.  It feels really good to actually interact with patients again.  I've really missed it.  I was getting pretty tired of sitting in a class allllllll day long.  Here I am all prettied up.

Oh yeah, also forgot to mention that this is the class where we get to learn how to do Male/Female specific exams.  This week, it was the male/prostate exam.  Yep, I've been initiated into the Digital Rectal Exam Club, comprised of the thousands of Med/PA students that have gone before me.  And yes, we got to learn on a real person.  What would possess somebody to want to volunteer for that job, I do not know.  Here we are after a successful learning session with Marc (our...proctor).

EKG
Learning how to read/interpret one of these.

P.S. - This is my homework, so if anybody knows what's going on here, drop me a line.

Extracurricular Activities
Dodgeball

This is a screen-grab from the RecSports promo video from the dodgeball tournament.

 We also started 4 on 4 flag football.  As of this week, we're 1 and 1.  

So there you have it.  That's what's been going on around here.  Now, back to studying or I'm going to fail my test tomorrow.  Peace out.