One of the blogs I read recently had a patient come in with Flea-bitis. It reminded me of a mother who brought her son in to neurology clinic for a second opinion. Apparently he had been diagnosed with something that sounded like Gardenias. The neurologist and the NP threw out a series of potential neurologic conditions... Guillian-Barre, maybe? After a quiet moment, I volunteered, do you mean Myasthenia Gravis? Yes, she did.
Recently, characters on tv have taken to enrolling in medical school. For example, the revamped Scrubs show will be set in medical school (the original started in residency). I'm actually quite curious to see what Scrubs does with this as the first few seasons were a fairly realistic portrayal of life as a resident.
On Brothers & Sisters, the youngest son and war vet, Justin, started medical school this season. His classes don't really seem anything like mine, but that could simply be a curricular difference. Medical schools all teach the same facts the first two years, but the approach to disseminating the information is quite varied. What was interesting though, it that they wrote him as a stressed out character that became removed from everyone else in his life. He lost track of much of the family gossip and was not there to support his girlfriend during his midterms; even telling her "there are going to be times when I'm not there for you."
I actually really appreciated this portrayal because honestly, that's how it happens. Like it or not, everything else comes second to medical school. Right before a final exam, your laundry, the dishes, phone calls to parents, gchat - everything is put on hold. If you're dating a medical student and you have bad news - hold on to it until the exams are done. Think of it as a preview for life to come: if you marry a doctor you will always come second to whatever patient is on the other end of that beeper. My 10 year anniversary? My daughter's first ballet recital? Your father's funeral? If I'm on call and that pager goes off... I have to go.
We joke about it sometimes, but I'm a little scared. In not too long I will be responsible for people's lives. I am leaning towards pediatric subspecialties; that could be your child. And if it was your child - consider - aren't you glad that I put everything else second to my education?
While gchatting (ostensibly studying neurology) a friend sent me a news story (from the science section?!) detailing how much skin a woman should show to maximize attractiveness to nearby men.
Methods: This was an observational study in which the authors used percentages of the body to determine the amount of exposed skin. Each arm was 10%, each leg 15% and the torso 50%. They they counted how many times each woman was approached. Neither the men or the women knew they were being studied.
Results: Women showing more or less than 40% exposed skin were approached less frequently.
Conclusion: Women showing less than 40% sent "prude" signals and women showing more sent "whore, adulteress" signals.
My immediate reaction was not "what a stupid thing to study" or "how can they claim to know what the men were thinking" or even "how does the methodology account for the possibility that the 40% women just happened to be the hottest regardless of clothing".
No, my reaction was: they got the body percentages wrong! Commonly used body surface area percentages for estimating burn injury are shown in the picture.
picture from UofM burn website: http://www.traumaburn.org/referring/fluid.shtml
Thanks to medical school I now know:
- The annoying twitching that my left deltoid has been doing all day is called a fasciculation.
- My myopia will likely mean a later onset of presbyopia (compared to non-myopes).
- When I was a child I had a form of parasomnia (I sleep-talked; c'mon, who's surprised?).
- Neurologists like disorders with either 1) long names or 2) eponyms 3) both for the same syndrome (ex. acute demylinating polyradiculoneuropathy aka Guillian-Barre)
- Ophthalmologists also like long names, but prefer they end in "-ia" (ex. internuclear opthalmoplegia)
- If you eat contaminated pork, you can get pork tapeworm (T. solium), but if you eat a carrot contaminated by someone with pork tapeworm you get neurocysticercosis so cook those carrots good (see picture above).
- Laser Assisted Subepithelial Keratomileusis (LASEK) surgery involves shearing a flap into your cornea, while you are awake (with analgesic eye drops, picture).
- Anesthesia is technically only central nervous system depression. When you are put under you also get neuromuscular blockade (paralysis), analgesia (pain control) and amnesia (no memories).
- A symptom of hepatic (liver) failure or renal (kidney) failure is asterixis (characteristic hand flapping). It is likely accompanied by encephalopathy (altered mental status). Oh, and you're in danger of dying, soon.
Recent quotes from lecture:
"Our country handles schizoid personalities very well. That's why we have software engineers, pathologists and Montana." -Dr. J
"Biopsying an aneurysm is not a successful procedure." -Dr. G
"If someone's head is cut completely off, that's not an emergency - that's a tragedy." - Dr. G
Medicine is full of big words with very specific meanings. Here is a fun paragraph from today:
Internuclear ophthalmoplegia (INO) is indicative of a particular opthalmoparesis. It is a disorder of conjugate lateral gaze in which the affected eye shows impairment of adduction. When the partner eye is abducted, it diverges from the affected eye. This produces horizontal diplopia. During extreme abduction, compensatory nystagmus can be seen in the partner eye. Convergence is generally preserved.
You realise you washed suture with your white coat.
AND you're excited it's still in tact so you can practice.
