Whew... the fall semester is over!! What an amazing relief to be done with more than half of the didactic year. The time in school has really flown by when reflecting back on the many months already passed. It goes by slow when neck deep in studying... but it goes by fast when looking back.
First let me report on the Endocrine module, our last module before winter break, I'm sure I won't be the first to say the Endocrine module was HARD!
There is a lot of work that goes into every organ system, and when learning about the endocrine system there are so many feedback mechanisms... it just gets very easy to get confused, look below and you'll see what I mean...
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| Endocrine organs and some of their hormones, It makes me dizzy just looking at it! |
----------------Winter break!-----------------
What can I say more about the wonderful joy of a 3 week break after making it through one of the most intense semesters of PA school! It was a much needed break, and gave me the opportunity to fly home and enjoy the holidays with my family in sunny Arizona! I forgot how much I really enjoy the sun! we don't get the same amount of intensity from the sun here in Oregon, and it definitely doesn't come out to shine as much.
New semester!
January 2, 2013 we started the spring semester and started off with our feet running right into the Musculoskeletal module... I really enjoyed this module, although it was very difficult basically like every module... however this module turned out to be one of our most challenging due to its massive amounts of memorization. I really loved being able to do more activities, and less sitting and simply listening to lectures.
Brief preview of this module:
Muscles (insertions, origin), their innervation (sensory and motor), brachial plexus, lumbosacral plexus, fractures, osteoporosis, arthritis, rheumatic conditions, bone neoplastic disease, strains, sprains, tenosynovitis... just to name a few!
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| Brachial Plexus |
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| Lumbosacral plexus |
We had the opportunity this module to do casting on each other and it was really a blast!
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| Boxers Fracture, look for the fracture at the pinky finger at the knuckle. |
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| Me wearing a Ulnar gutter spint (used for a Boxers fracture) on my right arm and a short arm cast on my left arm (you can see that my classmates enjoyed drawing all over it before I cut it off) |
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| My good friend Rachel sporting my first attempt at a short arm cast! |
Anatomy was emphasized in this module more than any other module... so during this module we have spent a lot of time in the anatomy lab. Let me just say the forearm has a lot of muscles... each with pretty long names and it was/is a lot of memorization.
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| This is not a cadaver in our lab (we don't take pictures of any of the cadavers) but an example of lab time. |
We also had a really cool opportunity to do a mock "ortho clinic" that gave us an opportunity to practice our physical exam skills and our history taking skills. There were about 5-6 musculoskeletal scenarios that we were randomly assigned and we worked it up just like we would in clinic (including writing prescriptions). It was actually really fun, and an awesome learning experience.
Next module is Neurology... and yes it will be a challenge, but it should be a lot of fun... I will of course keep the blog updated!
