The Little Spermatozoon That Could

It's been a while since I last wrote, but it's only because I've been very busy! I've finally got in to the swing of things at school, learning how to handle the stress of classes and tests while still being able to have a little free time to myself. Kelcie and I just enjoyed a nice weekend in our room... studying, you perverts! The good news is that we managed to find time to go out on a date last night. I took Kelc out to the Cheesecake Factory and then to a movie. We had a great time.

School is going well. We had a club fair where all of the clubs at school present their club and you join the ones you're most interested in. I ended up joining the Pediatrics club, Emergency Medicine, Student Osteopathic Surgery Association, Family Practitioner club and DOCARE, which is a club that does medical missions to third-world countries. It cost me a fortune, but I think they'll be great clubs to be a part of. Classes are getting a little heavier with material. It's not that things are getting harder but rather more content. I was given some of my first embryology lectures and turned out to really enjoy them, which made them quite easy to study this weekend. Nothing is more motivating than to read about poor sperm who run a race for hours just to realize that somebody has already won... at which point they wait around to die.

My Clinical class is turning out to be the most fun. It's only a couple of hours once a week, but it's the class that teaches us all of the techniques that doctors use. By the end of the year we will be able to perform a full physical exam. This past week we learned how to take blood pressure so I was more than happy to try it out on my favorite patient, Kelcie! Needless to say from the picture to the right, she was not too impressed. We had a few friends over on Friday night so I had them take some pictures of my impeccable work for all to see.

I must be off since I have a test early tomorrow and I have to wake up early to get a couple of hours of review in before it starts. So long and keep exercising!

-Student Dr. Benjamin D. Smith

The Ultimate Map and Osteopathic Manipulative Medicine

Let's pretend I told you that by this time next year, I expect you to know the map of the world. I'll start you off easily, perhaps by giving you a continent at a time to study. Let's start with Europe. While studying this part of the map, you must take note of all its important features. What are the countries within that continent? The capitals? How about oceans, major lakes or rivers? Where are the important mountain ranges? What is the English Channel and what is its relationship to France? Now that you've studied these important aspects of the world on a map, if I gave you satellite images of these same continents, could you still name those aspects?

The sacrum, with the coccyx
at the bottom end

This is what anatomy is like. Spending copious amounts of time studying drawings and books of the 'world' and then naming the parts on a human cadaver. We just finished covering the region of the back. We learned about all the muscles of the back, the nerves, blood vessels, and bones. So far I find it pretty interesting.... a huge use of time, but interesting. Labor day was this past weekend but unfortunately I didn't spend much time relaxing but studying for my exam. I still had one day to myself so that Kelcie and I could relax, but the other two were spent studying up material for my anatomy exam. Next monday is a biochemistry exam so I will start studying for that this evening... no rest for a medical student :D

Not from my school, but a taste of what OMM is like

Osteopathic physicians are unique to their traditional/allopathic counterparts in one specific aspect; osteopathic manipulative medicine, or OMM. OMM is a form of medicine that uses the idea that the body always tries to heal itself. As any type of physician we do not really mend a patient ourselves but use drugs or therapies in order to encourage the body to heal itself. OMM is what it means; manipulation. By using our hands we find certain places on the body where pressure or other forms of manipulation can do the body good. The idea is that osteopathic physicians try this method before prescribing any medication. If a patient has had shoulder surgery and is having problems with shoulder pain during recovery, rather than throwing pain-killers at them and slamming the door, DO's will perform various manual therapies around the area in order to release tension and thus reduce pain. Sometimes these methods will not work as well as medications and sometimes they will work better. The idea is only that alternate methods are taken into consideration before using medication. A study by Johnson et al found that only 6% of osteopathic physicians actually use this procedure with half or more of their patients while 33% reported using it on 5% or less of their patients. Needless to say, the use of OMM is up to the physician's discretion. I'm open to the idea of using OMM in my practice, especially if I do go into pediatrics or family care. Today during OMM lab we learned a lot of techniques to discover somatic dysfunctions (abnormalities) in the spinal and sacral regions. It was a lot of fun learning to use your hands as most of you know that I'm a very hands on learner.

One of the hardest things I've found to cope with in medical school is not the late nights studying, the pressure of exams, the high class exam-averages that I must compete with, or even the fact that sometimes I'm so busy studying that I forget why I came here in the first place. The hardest thing I've had to handle is touching people. It sounds ridiculous but it's true. I thought that of all people, I would be the least bit uncomfortable at the thought of touching others, but there's something so weird about it. I'm referring of course to my OMM course where I have to do a lot of pushing and feeling on others... and I'm not talking about holding hands or giving back rubs to friends. Each week I'm paired with a different student that I haven't had a chance to meet before and after a hasty handshake and a "should I be the doctor, or you?", I have my hands deep into the student's crotch feeling around for the bony landmarks of the hips. There's just something unsettling about the whole thing. I'm perfectly content for others to perform the procedures and exams on myself, but once its my turn to begin fumbling around their privates like an idiot, trying to find these subtle bumps while the whole time trying not to get charged for sexual harassment, I become uncomfortable! Perhaps once I get to know them more I will feel better. I'm sure that if I were paired up with one of my good friends, I would have no problem. But in the real world, in a clinical setting, will I have time to make friends with patients?

Kelcie digging through the apartment dumpster
to retrieve my precious knife that she accidentally
threw away!

On the home front, everything has been fine. Kelcie and I are doing great at home. She's just started her classes now and is spending a lot of her free time reading textbooks, studying for her classes in neuroanatomy (and I thought my anatomy was hard!). We try to keep Saturdays open so that we can spend some much needed time together, but we always make sure to have at least an hour a night to relax with each other while watching one of our favorite tv shows! Kelcie has been extremely good to me and has been baking tray after tray of cinnamon rolls, which has unfortunately caused me to gain a few pounds.. but they're too good to pass up!

Give me a needle and I'll give an injection. Hand me a scalpel and I'll slice through flesh. Give me a stethoscope and I'll listen to the constant dull thud of their heartbeat. Ask me to palpate the posterior superior iliac spine of my patient with my bare hands? It's gonna be a long ride.

Muscle and Nerves and Fat- Oh My!

It's the weekend before Week 4 of my first quarter in medical school. As you can see from the lack of posts since move-in weekend, I really have had no free time with exception of a Saturday here or there.. and even so, writing a blog wasn't the first thing on my list of things to do!

Move-in went very smoothly. Alex came up to help me move in and then fly out to New York from Phoenix after we were done. Kelcie's family came to help her move in and spent a few nights here, a few nights in which we had every meal out at a restaurant and I swore after that week I would never eat out again... I broke that promise a week later, haha. The apartment is fairly big. It has a kitchen and a large living room with a small hallway that leads to the bathroom and bedroom. The linen closet is in hallway. Kelcie's parents bought her a bunch of furniture over the past few years for which I'm extremely grateful for. I look around and laugh to myself because the only thing that I see in my vision that belongs to me is the computer on my lap and the Xbox under the TV.

Since I got here on move-in weekend with Alex, I've grown to love Arizona. The temperature is pretty hot, 105F on average, but can get up to 115F on a hot day. It seems unbearable, but the fact that it's a dry dry heat makes things a lot better. Plus, you're guaranteed at these temperatures that everywhere you go is air conditioned. My body has gotten used to the high temperatures and Kelcie pointed out last weekend that we were wearing jeans to dinner when it was still 95F outside. Arizona has monsoon season around this time of year, which makes things a lot more beautiful. Around July-August, there are changes in the weather that cause massive changes in weather fairly quickly. Every day it starts out around 90F and soars up to a baking 110F where it hangs with blue skies until about 4. At around 4, massive towering clouds roll in. It gets darker and the air gets a little muggy... not thick like in Georgia, but a light muggy. Then the clouds open up and give tremendous lightening storms. Kelcie and I sat outside of a yogurt place last night and watched the lightening rip through the air as we ate our frozen treats. 

From what you've read so far, I'm sure it doesn't seem like my life is that busy. It's not, really. I have a lot of work I need to do and end up studying for most of the day. I have work from 8-9 and then class from 9-5, at which point I begin to study for the test I have that following Monday. Tests are every Monday, so I'm constantly studying. It could be worse though, a lot worse. A lot of the friends that I've made here have families. Some of them even have kids. I can't imagine trying to balance medical school with kids, let alone young ones. Even so, I study most of the time and find myself with about 3-4 hours of free time a night, which I spend relaxing with Kelcie and the occasional video game. On weekends, I try to take Saturday to myself. Friday is all studying, but I try to take Saturday as time for Kelcie and I to explore Arizona or just relax if we need to. So far it has worked but once my other two classes start up during the week, I may not have enough time for that leisure. Sundays are solid study days since the following Monday is test day. I took my first test last Monday and did well, but not as well as I'd like. So this week I've spent more time working out the details. As I'm sure you understand, changing gears from undergraduate work to graduate work is a bit of a change and it will take a test or two to get set for my journey. 

Kelcie and I went to the Out of Africa animal park yesterday. It was a lot of fun. It's a wild park where the animals roam free.. those except the predators of course, who are put in cages. You take a bus tour around the paddocks and get to feed the giraffes, camels and many others. They have a whole gate system to keep the animals locked inside the paddock while the busses come in and out.. I couldn't stop thinking about Jurassic Park; I'll find it one day, I'm determined!

I'll try to post more often, but like I said, sometimes spending a half hour writing on my computer is the last thing I want to do after a long day of studying. I'll try my best though! Until next time. Wish me luck on my Histology test!

Palm Desert to Peoria

After a long drive both yesterday and today, my brother Alex and I finally arrived in Peoria, a town outside of Glendale. The drive wasn't too bad, but I wouldn't want to do it again for a long time. Arizona is beautiful.. a different sort of beautiful to California. The land still has mountains like in CA, but there is less green and more shrub which is to be expected I guess. A massive storm rolled in today while we were at dinner. The massive dark clouds hung above the orange of the setting sun, the raw power above the setting sun was beautiful.
I'm looking forward to moving in tomorrow. After a couple of days of driving and hotel stays, I'm ready to do what I came here for. I'm tired of sitting in hotels watching TV! I don't know how much to expect about our apartment or how clean/new it is. Hopefully it doesn't disappoint!