Saturday, November 22, 2008

Scavenger Hunt

Nicole and I spent all day going over the procedures for the clinical skills assessment practical on Monday. For some reason, I keep on forgetting that the umbilicus is part of the abdominal exam, but hopefully, I'll have it down in two days. I need to just sit and read through Bates Guide to Physical Examination -I especially need to go over the breathing abnormalities and the JVP waveform abnormalities. It all feels so important, from the presentation of findings, to the correct procedure for examination, to knowing what the findings mean - it's a shame that it's just not worth that much as far as my points go.

The second semester class has their anatomy practical over the abdomen today. Spotty attendance at my TA sessions has caused my enthusiasm to wane somewhat, but I still enjoy it; I had fun pulling out tags today. Essentially, I had to hunt through bags of guts and bodies to find the structures the students would have to identify. I even had to dissect out the Greater Splanchnic, because, apparently, they haven't done that lab yet. I'm going back to help with the cleanup in a couple hours; not too many people signed up for that time-slot, and I'll help out where I can. This is one of those things that leads me to think that surgery might be something I enjoy, but I'm keeping my cards close off the table 'til I hit the clerkships.

It's fun to think about the ultimate scope of my practice, but right now my attention has narrowed to a very few things: the physical exam practical on Monday, the interview practical on Wednesday, the HPI write-up due on Monday, and then, at the end of the semester, the Behavioral Science shelf exam, the pathology lab practical, the third mini exam, and the final. That may sound like a lot, but I had twice as much last semester.

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