Another Day, Another Lecture

I've now been in medical school for 3.5 months, learned a lot, sat in a lot of lectures, looked at a lot of pictures, and memorized (as well as forgot) a lot of material. We are almost wrapping up our focused anatomy section. Next Friday we have an exam worth 30% of our mark for Course 2. In the past four weeks we have covered an astonishing amount of anatomy as well as some clinical information. I've discovered that orthopedics can be both very exciting and very boring. When we have trauma surgeons talking about polytraumas coming in with multiple injuries from high energy incidents things get quite interesting. However, after a three hour discussion of osteoarthritis orthopedics/rheumatology is not nearly as exciting, in fact it is terribly boring. However the irony is that osteoarthritis and rheumatoid arthritis are much more common than exciting polytraumas.

Yesterday one of my group members and I had our Orthopedics Clinical Correlation at one of the Cast Clinics here in Calgary. We worked with a group composed of cast techs, us, a clinical clerk, a resident, a fellow, and the attending physician. In my limited previous experiences with the healthcare system I've wondered why there always seems to be random people standing around doing nothing - yesterday I found out why. When you are the clinical medical student (as opposed to a clinical clerk) you are pretty much at the very very bottom of the totem pole. However, even the resident (two or three steps up the totem pole) still had to wait for the attending physicians go ahead/ok on any diagnosis or advice. So for any of you frustrated by people standing around when you are waiting in the hospital it might simply reflect protocol as opposed to laziness.

The Cast Clinic was pretty cool. The cast techs who are amazing at their job showed us how to put casts on the resident who kindly volunteered his arm. My group member and myself successfully wrapped both his arms with cotton batting after pulling a sleeve on them and then applied the fibreglass casting material. We got lots of good advice and tips from the cast techs and fellow and did a decent job of it (although it took us much longer than the demonstration by the cast tech). After the casts were examined for flaws - they had a few - we got to cut them off with the cool cast cutting tool. It has a vibrating blade that can't cut through moveable material, i.e. skin and padding that you wrap the arm in before casting. Thus it won't cut through skin, unless it is stretched tightly over bone. When the cast tech demonstrated this for me by placing the rapidly vibrating serrated half moon on my palm I jumped and it didn't feel good but it certainly didn't cut me at all.

MSK has a ton of anatomy in it which I'm still attempting to learn (hopefully I'll have a good handle on it by next Friday). Anatomy is important for any medical specialty because it allows you to place things happening in the body in a physical context - where they are, what they are attached to. As part of this course we are also learning a large number of physical exam tests for a large number of things like anterior cruciate ligament tears (ACL), nerve root compression, damage to sensory nerves, reflexes, tears to the glenoid labrum, damage to the rotator cuff, just to name a few. These kind of tests are annoying to learn because most of them are named after some random doctor who lived more than 70 years ago and decided to name a kind of fracture after himself. However, they are tests that are relatively easy to perform and can be strongly diagnostic of given problem, without fancy diagnostic tools like CT scans.

In one month we will be done school for the Christmas break and also finished Course 2. This will mean that I'm done better than 2/7s of my theoretical medical training. However, in the meantime I'd better get learning that the fibula and tibia form a mortise joint that articulates with the talus allowing for plantar and dorsi flexion of the foot, as well as a whole bunch of other stuff.

I Passed!

Thank you all for your good thoughts and emails following my previous post. I received my results from my Course 1 final exam and I passed with flying colours. I was very happy with my result. It doesn't matter in the long run as all we will see on our transcript is a Pass or Fail but it was still nice to see that I had a solid margin above the minimum pass. With that I've put Course 1 to rest, but not fully. The topics we learned about - liver disease, blood, clotting problems are still relevant but they are just taking a backseat to our most recent course the Musculoskeletal System.

MSK is intense. This unit is likely to be our busiest in terms of anatomy memorization. In twelve hours we covered virtually all the muscles, bones, and ligaments of the hand, arm, shoulder, spine, pelvis, leg, and foot. Suffice to say, after three four hour sessions our brains were well and truly stuffed with information. This is the only formal instruction we are going to have specifically about the anatomy. The synthesis and further understanding of it we need to gain on our own through time spent with text books, in the lab with the cadavers, and optional sessions run by some fellow students and one of the anatomy instructors. The moral of this story is that I'm thinking about muscles and bones more than I ever have before. When I see people who are really thin and fit I'm tempted to stop and ask them if they could flex for me to see if I can identify the muscles I'm seeing.

The first week of this course was somewhat overwhelming and definitely different than Course 1. The course chairs and primary teachers are different and it shows. I suspect that I'm going to reflect on Course 1 with fondness for the rest of my education here at UofC. We are now getting into the clinical aspects of the muscle and bone. Today was all about trauma, Advanced Trauma Life Support (ATLS), fractures, and incident prevention. We also had a presentation from a patient who had been in a severe motor vehicle collision suffering multiple fractures and then had to go through five months of intense and painful rehab to regain function. It is days like this that make med school interesting. The orthopaedic surgeons are also doing their best to make Trauma and Orthopaedics sound like the best specialty. I'm not entirely convinced but they are definitely making a good effort. We've also had some incredibly painful lectures about topics like the physiology of bone growth and healing - not nearly so glamorous but just as relevant.

This afternoon was also super cool. We learned how to draw blood and insert IVs. While we understand that this is not necessarily something we will do a lot of (depending on location and specialty) it was still really cool to practice. We didn't have the opportunity to practice on each other but the stimulator arms we practiced on 'bled' when we poked them so it certainly felt real and we will be getting some real practice in the near future I believe. Being in the lab today playing with needles or 'sharps' definitely made me feel quite doctor like.

Anyways, it is Friday night and I'm off for the weekend...to the hot springs to study some anatomy.

Wish Me Luck

Good Evening from Calgary. This is just a very brief post to request your good vibes and happy thoughts tomorrow. Why you might ask? Well, tomorrow is my first certifying examination for which I feel quite under prepared. That begs the question of why I'm creating a blog posting instead of studying. At this point I'm wondering if perhaps good luck thoughts from around the globe might be more productive than further review of a multitude of acronyms. Probably not but that is what I'm telling you.

To give you a taste of the things I'm trying to keep sorted I'll give you a small list. However, I'll start with one key acronym - MPL. This refers to the minimum pass level. This is the mark (which will be determined after the test but is usually around 65%) that you have to achieve to be considered competent and not have to resit the examination next summer. So of all the acronmyms I care about at this point in time the MPL is the most important one.

Some other acronyms of note include: TTP, HUS, CML, CLL, ALL, AML, DIC, Plt, Hb, DDAVP, ET, PRV, PCR, HBA, HBV, HBC, antiHBs, HBsAg, IgG, IgM, IgE, HEELP, ALP, ALT, AST, MFD, MFS, DVT, PE, ALF, PJP, NHS, EtOH, MAHA, AIHA, CMV, HSV, HZ, HIV, RBC, WBC, A1AT, PK, G6PD, TPN, TPA, TIPS, ITP, and the list goes on.

However, I'd best continue studying. Tomorrow I write the first part of the exam (1pm-4pm MDT, worth 80%). Then on Friday from 12:30-1:50 I write the second part which is based in the lab and on identification of blood smears, pathological specimens, and anatomy based on cadavers which is worth 20%. With that I will wrap up the first course of medical school and be ready to move on to our next course which is the Musculoskeletal System and Skin.

A Break In the Silence

My apologies for the long silence. I've begun to get a few questions regarding the status of my blog and if you haven't found anything it is simply a reflection of my lack of writing as opposed to any technical difficulties that I am aware of. In my last blog I reflected on our first formative exam (which didn't count for anything). I got my results back and was pleasantly surprised with an overall satisfactory performance, even on the peripatetic component of the exam. There were some identified weaknesses but overall I was pleased. I have some room for improvement but that is the way with any assessment.

Medical school has settled into a routine which has reduced my number of 'exciting events' to tell you about. This is not to say that there are no longer exciting events but the novelty has worn off a little bit. For example two weeks ago we spent a whole week on diarrhoea. While this may not be particularly appetizing to many people I found it quite amusing and interesting. There are a number of causes, types, treatments, etc so I now know much more about diarrhoea than I used to.

Our first course is in its final stages. We have 8 more days of new material, a week of review, and then we write our summative exams (counting for 100% of Course 1) on October 22 and 23 which is coming right up. Thus, I have a lot of review to do in the next couple of weeks. By some rough figuring we have had 220 hours of lecture in this course with approximately 9000 powerpoint slides to review. While some of them are empty, introductions, charts, not important, there are still a lot of slides to click through...but I'll get through it and pass if all goes well because I certainly don't want to have to rewrite next summer.

We are almost finished our clinical correlation for this course. It has been interesting to see our skills improving. In terms of taking a history and performing a focused physical exam the difference between our first sessions in late August and now the difference is night and day. We still have a long way to go but we are definitely gaining skills and we have learned a lot. We will never be able to learn it all but the increase is phenomenal. During history of medicine last week one statistic that came up was 'medical students learn on average 20 000 new words in their first 2 years of medical school'. I'm not certain that it is actually this many words but at any rate we are learning a massive amount of information about a large variety of topics.

We've learned about a lot of different things but by far the most enjoyable part of medical school remains our small group and patient interaction learning situations. This past week we got to observe two gastroscopys - one showed a normal esophagus and duodenum while the other showed a Mallory-Weiss Tear (a tear resulting from retching at the gastric esophogeal junction). The Gastroenterologist put several little metal clips into the tear to hold it together and stop it from bleeding and that was that. Later we met a patient and practiced taking a history from him (as a small group of 5) and then I performed the abdominal exam - there were no visible scars, stigmata of liver disease, there was no bruising or significant superficial veins. There was mild edema in the ankles but no bulging flanks. Bowel sounds were heard on auscultation, there was no tenderness on light or deep palpation, Castel's Point was negative for splenomegaly and there was a palpable spleen edge just below the costal margin...so we are getting there.

Formative Exams and a Day in Strathmore

Another week has come and gone in the blink of an eye and I've now been in medical school for five whole weeks. I thought one way to reflect on my week would be in point form so I'll begin with a few things I've learned this week.

1. You feel very stupid when a doctor asks you a question in front of a patient and you don't know the answer. It doesn't matter that I've only been in medical school for five weeks, you still feel like you've seriously missed the boat.

2. I don't think I want to be an ER doctor. I've always thought ER sounded like an interesting specialty and it still is...but after a day at the ER in Strathmore, AB I think that I like the people interactions too much to be an ER doc. Interacting with the patients in that setting tends to be very brief, check them out, make sure they aren't dying, and send them on their way or admit them to the hospital - you don't have the time or need to form any real kind of relationship with them, you just address their immediat concern, and I think that I want a specialization where develop longer term relationships with your patients. That being said, watch this blog as I'm sure my ideas of what a 'good' speciality will change once or twice in the next year and a half.

3. I've decided that getting viral hepatitis is a bad idea whether A, B, C, D, or E I don't want it. Luckily I've been vaccinated against A and B but I have no plans in the immediate or distant future to share needles with IV drug users, or engage in other similar risky behaviours...I like my liver just fine the way it is and it can be damaged enough by fat let alone adding the risk of a viral infection on top of it all.

4. I'm realizing that in medicine when you have a bad day it has the potential to be a really bad day. Imagine establishing a relationship with a patient who is terminally ill that could be cured by an organ transplant of some sort but because they have too many risk factors against them and their illness isn't acute enough they won't be put on the list (or they'll be put too far down the list) to receive the organ that they need before they pass away...I think that passing that kind of news along would generally make you have a bad day, even though it is no fault of your own. The idea of being a 'healer' is something that I believe draws many of us medical students to pursue this career. However, I suspect that we are going to find that there are some days we feel like we are fighting a losing battle. We are going to face a combination of patients that don't care about their own health (or didn't care in the past and now face the consequences) and a system that is flawed - insufficient resources for growing needs. Organ transplants are a prime example. The number of people requiring transplants is going up, success rates for transplantation procedures have improved in the last 20 years (I believe) but the supply of available organs is decreasing or remaining constant. The same thing applies with screening and diagnostic techniques like colonoscopies. If I understand the science correctly many colorectal cancers could be caught by regular colonoscopies, in the same way that mammograms catch breast cancers. However, the resources are simply not available to meet the demand and so it forces medical professionals to rank patients according to immediate need, placing the priorities of one patient above those of another.

5. If I understood the doctor yet and I had to get a blood cancer I would rather get a faster growing one than a slow growing one. At first this seemed counter-intuitive however the explanation made sense. Fast growing cancers are dividing much more often than the normal healthy cells of your body. Chemotherapy can target dividing cells and you have a much better chance of eliminating the cancer that is dividing quickly because you can target it. Slow growing cancers that grow at similar rates to your normal cells are much more difficult to target and kill completely.

6. Mnemonics are very useful. Mnemonic is just the fancy name for a memorization technique and can be as simple as remembering something to the tune of a song, a phrase, or an acronym. The acronym I learned this week is VEAL to help me remember the complications of Portal Hypertension. V stands for varices (essentially varicose veins in your esophagus, they are bad). E stands for encephalopathy (this is essentially brain problems, also VERY bad). A stands for ascites (this is the accumulation of fluid in your peritoneum basically your abdominal cavity and increases your risk of dying quite significantly, thus it too is very bad). Finally L stands for liver cancer or hepatocellular carcinoma, as I'm sure you've guessed by this point liver cancer too is bad. In one simple sentance - Portal Hypertension is bad.

7. People are amazingly generous to medical students. On Saturday I did a day of shadowing at the Strathmore Emergency Room (which I found out is one of the busier ERs in the province). While there the doctor had me taking histories from the patients before he saw them. I introduced myself the men, women, and children who were clearly uncomfortable and had been waiting, possibly for hours and they allowed me to fumblingly work through a somewhat directed history to try and find out what the doctor needed to know to make a diagnosis. Some of them even allowed me to ask them questions that were clearly of no relevance to their complaint but allowed me to work on my history taking skills. We have been told in our Ethics class that doctors enjoy a unique place in society because people will tell us pretty much anything, even though we are complete strangers. Listening to the patients on Saturday made me realize that it is true, and with these stories comes a responsibility to respect the patients who are coming in their discomfort, pain, and need for assistance, to respect their privacy and to do everything you can to ease their pain. I don't know if my class will take the Hippocratic Oath upon graduation or not but there is a modernized version (at least modernized in 1964) that definitely has new found relevance after my day of dealing with 'real patients'.

I swear to fulfill, to the best of my ability and judgment, this covenant: I will respect the hard-won scientific gains of those physicians in whose steps I walk, and gladly share such knowledge as is mine with those who are to follow. I will apply, for the benefit of the sick, all measures [that] are required, avoiding those twin traps of overtreatment and therapeutic nihilism. I will remember that there is art to medicine as well as science, and that warmth, sympathy, and understanding may outweigh the surgeon's knife or the chemist's drug. I will not be ashamed to say "I know not," nor will I fail to call in my colleagues when the skills of another are needed for a patient's recovery. I will respect the privacy of my patients, for their problems are not disclosed to me that the world may know. Most especially must I tread with care in matters of life and death. If it is given me to save a life, all thanks. But it may also be within my power to take a life; this awesome responsibility must be faced with great humbleness and awareness of my own frailty. Above all, I must not play at God. I will remember that I do not treat a fever chart, a cancerous growth, but a sick human being, whose illness may affect the person's family and economic stability. My responsibility includes these related problems, if I am to care adequately for the sick. I will prevent disease whenever I can, for prevention is preferable to cure. I will remember that I remain a member of society, with special obligations to all my fellow human beings, those sound of mind and body as well as the infirm. If I do not violate this oath, may I enjoy life and art, respected while I live and remembered with affection thereafter. May I always act so as to preserve the finest traditions of my calling and may I long experience the joy of healing those who seek my help. Written in 1964 by Louis Lasagna, Academic Dean of the School of Medicine at Tufts University.

8. I still don't really like to study. I'm not sure if I have ever actually enjoyed studying. I've always had this sense that studying is work and there is something, anything that I could be doing would be preferable. While I've certainly found activities that are less preferable than studying it is not my favorite activities. However, this coming Friday I have my first Formative Exam. At the UofC exams come in two flavours - formative and summative. Formative exams are worth 0 points. The come half way through each course and act as a check point to make sure you are on the right track, and you are learning what you ought to be learning. So, I've decided to try and treat this as a real test that does count for something in order to get the most out of it...so my 'day off' tomorrow is going to be largely studying but hopefully it will be a fine day and I'll get to enjoy some of it. One thing that is very nice about UofC and many other medical schools is that we are graded on a pass/fail system. While we will still find out what our actual score was (e.g. 37% or 93%) our transcripts will only record pass/fail. The pass/fail line is not set at 50% but is rather based on competency. Instructors sit down and create an examination. They then determine what percentage of questions a medical student at the examinee's level should get correctly to demonstrate competence. We are not being asked to know every single thing we have learned because that is impossible (although it would be nice). We are required to demonstrate competency as first year medical students, and this same philosphy will extend through the rest of our training...so hopefully on Friday I will demonstrate that I am competent. If not I guess I'm going to have to sort out how to become more competent at my study strategies. A friend of mine once described his overweight grandmother's attempt to lose weight by various diets - Cabbage, Atkins, Grapefruit, etc. His conclusion however was that she should try the 'less food diet'. I suspect that if my competency is found to be inadequate the best study techniqe for me to try would be the 'more studying technique'. However, Friday should give me a good indication where I'm sitting and if I need to change.

9. This 'point form' list has become rather long, however I will conclude with one final observation from the week - while it is possible for me to function on five hours of sleep I don't function an an optimal level and caffeine intake is insufficient to compensate for the lack of sleep cycles. Thus, my goal needs to be a minimum of six hours of sleep/night...so we'll see what this week holds.

Of Colonoscopies and Sleep Deficit

Another week of Medical School is done. In attempt to stay awake at some point this week I found a website that figured out how many weeks it is until I graduate, presuming I survive that long. It is almost a bit scary. Our course is 145 weeks long, the last 54 weeks are clerkship, we have 8 weeks of holidays and 83 weeks of instruction. Thus, having completed four weeks we have 79 weeks of instruction remaining to learn all that we need to know before we begin our clerkship. Time is such a precious commodity and it is slipping away so quickly. It feels like we just started class the other day but I've now been here for a month and I'm certain that the next 141 weeks are going to go at the same rate and I will be finished.

I've observed that I'm not a very good time manager and one of my biggest challenges is going to bed at night. This is partly a result of daytime procrastination and partly a result of the fact that I'm a night owl. The problem is that we had classes or activities of some description at 8:30 every day this week. That really cut down on my sleep in time and it made it a bit challenging to take anything away from lectures when I was functioning on not enough sleep. I'm quite fortunate though - almost all of the lectures in this course are podcast - they are recorded during the lecture and then uploaded to iTunes where we can download them. Thus, while I write this I am multi-tasking by listening to a lecture about alcoholic hepatitis and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. This is the second time I've listened to it and hopefully by the time it is finished I'll have got the majority of important points from it.

There are two new words that I'm quite partial to. The first is asterixis - it is a symptom of hepatic encephalopathy and refers to a characteristic tremor of the hand when it is extended. The second is a phrase - scleral icterus and refers to yellow eyes (rather the 'white' of the eye) which is characteristic of jaundice.

Today we watched two colonoscopies. We were in a small theatre in the screening clinic and we watched the procedure via a live video feed. The colonoscopist was miked so she 'walked' us through the colon and a polypectomy. It was pretty cool! We've learned quite a bit about the large intestine but to see it in living colour with the healthy, vascularized, pink colon wall was fabulous. There was a small polyp we watched get burnt off as well so it was fascinating. It is amazing what you can do with technology today. It was also fascinating to see the variation between the lining of the terminal ileum which is lumpy from lymphoid tissue and has a carpet of columnar epithelium that looks like 'shag carpeting' compared to the smooth pink squamous epithelium of the large intestine. The border is very distinct. I've found it quite interesting how precise the borders in the body are. There are visible lines between different tissues at places like the gastro-esophogeal junction at the ileocecal junction and elsewhere. Another rather nifty thing was retroflexion. This is when the colonoscopist turns the tip of the colonoscope back 180 degrees on itself. This allowed the colonoscopist to view the rectal-anal junction (an important spot to check for pre-cancerous polyps) and you could see the scope being squeezed by the anal spincter. The same procedure can be performed during an endoscopy to examine the fundus or top of the stomach and the gastro-esophogeal junction where the esophagus and stomach join.

Anyways, I'm off to a bonfire and a nice sleep in tomorrow. I need to listen to some more lectures and by Monday morning I'm going to know a lot more about Hepatits, Gall Stones, and Liver tests but for now it is Friday night and I'm off.

The Rise of the Blobfish

Orientation is complete, and the class of 2012 now has a name. I am no longer simply a member of the Class of 2012, I am now a Blobfish. As a Blobfish I’ve joined the Class of 2011 (the Kakapos), the Class of 2010 (the Glabers), and others. This is a Calgary tradition – each incoming medical class gets an animal name and it seems like the weirder the better. For your information, the Blobfish (Psychrolutes marcidus) is considered one of the world’s ugliest fish and lives at the bottom of the ocean off Australia and Tasmania, floating just above the ocean floor. It accomplishes this by being composed of a gelatinous substance with a density slightly lower than that of water. Thus they have to expend very little energy to just float along and eat little bits of food that come by. These poor animals are often caught by bottom trawling fishermen and die terribly painful deaths when their gelatinous mass is exposed to the harsh ultraviolet radiation of the surface of the sea!

We’ve now begun another week and I decided I’d better update this blog before life gets too busy. It seems like we tend to have topical weeks. This week is going to be about the liver – liver cancer, liver disease, liver symptoms so I’ll be able to tell you what is happening to your liver by Friday, if all goes as planned.

Last week on the other hand was all about blood and the oesophagus – we had a whole afternoon about three different kinds of anaemia, a whole morning about Thalassemia, and a bunch of lectures about oesophagus cancer and swallowing difficulty. I led my first Case Study group this past week. In our first course we have approximately 22 case studies. In our Small Group of 10, two people are assigned to lead each case study. So, my topic was dysphagia or difficulty swallowing. We worked through the causes and possible diagnoses associated with dysphagia and came up with a differential diagnosis, possible therapies that could be tried, and diagnostic tools that could be used to come up with a definite diagnosis. Each case study has a preceptor who is a physician here in Calgary. Our preceptor for the Dysphagia session was a general pediatric surgeon who was very keen about medical education and has offered us any kind of shadowing experience we would like at the Children’s Hospital so that is a fantastic opportunity I mean to take advantage of.

I am not really aware of the sheer volume of material that we are learning although when I start to think about the volume it is amazing. We have been in class for three weeks and have covered an array of presentations, pathology, anatomy, and therapies already. The overlap and holistic style of instruction is very effective for helping us assimilate this large volume of material but I personally find the small group learning sessions by far the most effective.

Saturday afternoon my Core Group (5 people) met with one of our Physical Exam preceptors. Our preceptor is a resident at the Peter Lougheed Hospital and in these sessions we are to learn how to perform a proper and effective physical exam. We began with an examination of the spleen and the lymph nodes. The preceptor would explain things to us then demonstrate them, then ask us a question about them to make sure we understood. I think it was the most fun I’d had at medical school. We were actually Inspecting, percussing, and palpating a healthy abdomen to see if there was any evidence of splenomegaly. The passion of the preceptor and the stuff we were doing was amazing – it was a great learning experience and I didn’t even mind being in a clinical skills room on a sunny Saturday afternoon.

This morning we are starting with Healthy Populations. While everyone recognizes the importance of epidemiology and population health it is acknowledged as one of the ‘drier’ topics for lecturing and I suspect it will be rather poorly attended as the weeks go by (especially on Monday mornings). However, it is almost time for a break so I’m going to call this all for now. My apologies if this narrative is somewhat disjointed – I’ve written it on two different days and while listening with one ear about community needs assessments so hopefully there are not major mistakes.

Have a great week all.

The First Cadaver and Other Reflections

So I have now completed a total of six days of medical school and it seems like a lot more than that - we have definitely jumped right into the program. That being said we are still being introduced to courses that will run longitudinally throughout the year. Thus far med school has been very organizedly unorganized or perhaps unorganizedly organized. Everyone seems to know more or less what is going on except for the students, that would be me. Like a herd of sheep we simply follow the other 20 year olds that look somewhat lost and have a red backpack. We all got backpacks on free day and they are a great way to recognize a person who you realize is in your class, that you have probably met but have no recollection of ever actually talking to. However, we are definitely learning. I can tell you most of the components of a complete blood count (CBC) and discuss the primary causes of Upper GI bleeds. I also know that you are supposed to hear all sorts of things through your stethoscope, and perhaps one day I'll even know what I'm listening to. The learning curve is steep, and I think next week it will get even steeper.

It may come as a surprise to some but lectures at medical school (of which we have a decent number) are very similar to lectures in an undergraduate degree. You might even say shockingly similar - there are good lecturers and not so good lecturers. People come late, other people (I might add that most of the med class are keeners) show up early. After four hours of lecture it doesn't matter how interesting it is but you are starting to doze off and your focus is slipping rather badly. The up side of these lectures is that they prepare us for the much more stimulating small group sessions. The lectures provide the background and then the small groups provide the reinforcement to make sure you've actually sorted out what you need to know. Our preceptors (doctor teachers) guide our small groups and are actually amazing people at the top of their game! We are also seeing our 'circle' of peers shrink a bit. By the end of the year we are going to know the people in our small group well but the rest of the 180 we simply don't have the inclass time to become acquainted with, that will have to happen outside of class time.

The list of recommended textbooks keeps growing - physical exam texts, general medicine, anatomy, physiology, pathology, haematology, and so forth. If I buy them all I'm going to need another room in my apartment just for the texts. Unsurprisingly these books cost an arm and a leg, but at least we'll learn how to justify an amputation in Course 2 where we talk about the musculoskeletal system.

We are already being inducted into a profession that is by its nature somewhat closed - we are gaining a very specialized body of knowledge that is necessary to do our job. For example in a recent lecture on transfusion reactions - problems associated with transfusions of packed red blood cells, platelets, clotting factors, etc that the public's largest concern is with viral transmission. The spectre of the HIV transmitted to haemophiliacs in the '80s still haunts the public. However, for the medical professional viral transmission, as a risk associated with blood transfusions is down at the bottom of the list of concerns. There is a whole raft of other problems that are far more likely to affect a patient than HIV. The statistics are something like - you are more likely to be hit by lightening than to be infected with HIV from a blood transfusion. Adding to this 'professional mystery' is the jargon that we are picking up. We will learn it to interact with other professionals but when dealing with patients we will have to remember to phrase it in understandable terms. One does not ask a patient if they are suffering from dyspnea or nocturnal diaphoresis. There are a multitude of wonderful terms that are perfectly accurate - exsanguination, hematochezia, hematemesis, polycythemia and yet disguise the problems one would be experiencing or the fear you might feel at (exanguination 'bleeding out'), seeing a toilet bowl red with fresh blood (hematochezia - blood by rectum), or vomiting up bright red blood (hematemesis). In contrast polycythemia (abnormal increase in the number of new red blood cells) seems less severe but also is a symptom of problems!

This afternoon we spent several hours in a series of stations to become acquainted with the anatomy laboratory. We looked at specimens of ulcerated and cancerous stomachs and then examined microscopic samples of these tissues (this is known as histology). This was followed by an examination of blood smears - both normal and abnormal. Then we spoke with some phlebotomists (people who collect blood) about blood typing (determining whether you are A+ or B-, etc) and transfusions. This was followed by our first exposure to a cadaver.

Because of the structure of Calgary's program we will not be following the traditional 'get a cadaver and cut it up' methodology sometimes associated with medical training. Instead we will look at prosections (prepared sections) and other specimens that are associated with the specific unit that we are learning. We will still learn anatomy and physiology but it will not be the traditional independent classes that you sometimes hear about.

The first cadaver I've ever seen was a male - his face and lower extremities were covered and his abdomen was opened so we could see the GI tract which is the topic of our study at the moment. Our excellent anatomy instructor pointed out the various parts of the GI tract, showed us where and how hiatus hernias develop, the various parts of the stomach (where different kinds of ulcers and cancers grow), and then the parts of the large and small intestine. We also discussed blood supply to the guts through the celiac, superior mesentary, and inferior mesentary arteries which branch off of the aorta at the celiac trunk. One thing that struck me is the size of the aorta, especially incomparison to the size of other components of the peritoneal cavity (most of the abdomen). It made it very clear why problems with the aorta are VERY serious. Another thing I noticed is how far into our body the spine protrudes. I tend to think of the spinal column being relatively flat but anyone who has seen a spine assembled (just the bones) knows it is not this way. The oesophagus or esophagus and the aorta run right along the bones of the vertebrae and it sticks up into the thoracic and abdominal cavities separating the various organs from one another. Suffice to say seeing a cadaver puts things in perspective in a way that a text book simply cannot!

Our final station was a discussion of endoscopy. Endoscopys are a procedure to look at the upper GI tract. There is an endoscopy simulator that was used to demonstrate a normal endoscopy and then repair an ulcer - this is a pretty cool piece of equipment (for around $90 000 you should be able to get an amazing piece of equipment)!

Today we received contact information for our Clinical Correlation preceptors. These are practicing physicians that are going to take us into the ward and introduce us to patients who are relative to the content we are learning at present. Thus, by the end of the month we will be interacting with real live patients, on the wards - Med school is COOL!

However, at this point in time this narrative has wondered on for too long as is. My alarm is going to go off too early tomorrow and it is difficult to learn when you keep falling asleep.

Let the learning begin

Words of the Day

Melena: black, tarry foul smelling stool containing blood. The blood is a relatively large volume, has been exposed to gastric acid, has been exposed to bacteria, and has been in the GI tract for 8-14 hours.

Borborygmi: the rumbling stomach sounds characteristic of hyperperistalsis

Today was the first day of real med school, and I'm thinking I might be a busy fellow for the next three years. I enjoyed this past weekend having a bit of time to get more settled in my apartment and catch up on a bit of sleep, another aspect of life that is going to be at a premium I believe.

The picture I've added to this post is of the Foothills Hospital complex. There are technically a whole bunch of individual buildings but they are all connected. I will be spending the majority of my time in the building at the tip of the arrow. This is where the Health Sciences Library, Clinical Skills Centre, Small Group Rooms, and Lecture Theatres are located. Incidentally if I could climb up a very high ladder into the sky out of the roof of my apartment this is the view I would se as well.

They broke us in easy this morning at 8:30 with our Introduction to Medical Skills. This is the class where we will learn about communicating with patients, performing a proper physical exam, taking a history, ethics etc. After a brief introduction we finished out the 2 hour block by watching the film Patch Adams. We will be discussing the various attitudes and methodologies the various characters adopt throughout the film but it was a nice way to start. We then had a break until 1pm when things started for real.

We had lectures from 1pm-5:15pm this afternoon so it was a fairly dense information to brain dump. The topics ranged from how we will be assessed for our first course (which runs from now until October 22), a brief overview of the multitude of lab tests that can be ordered by a physician such as a CBC, INR, GTT, GGT, PTT and so forth. It was meant to be a general overview and introduction and it was! We finished the day with a discussion of Upper Gastrointestinal Bleeding, the first of the 120 patient presentations or ways that a patient could present to the physician (if I understand correctly). The lecture was complemented by a youtube video of an endoscopy of a normal upper GI tract. It starts putting this in a useful, real life context...on the very first day of lectures. This was really interesting and I love the way that the instructors draw on all aspects of a problem to present it. We talked about symptoms, taking a history and what to look for in this kind of a presentation, physically examingin for this problem, the most likely causes, way to confirm a diagnosis, classifications, emergency measures, and treatment. It is a very holistic approach that I think is going to be very effective.

Judging from the volume of material covered today I'm going to be busy. In some ways I was able to float through most of my undergraduate degree with periods of intense effort immediately prior to exams and paper due dates. However, that is not likely to be very effective here considering the volume of material and the importance of learning it well...so I guess a readjustment of study habits may be necessary but only time will tell.

I'm off to make some supper; however, if you are interested in what your hopefully healthy esophagus, stomach, and duodenum look like check out this video on youtube - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pNXJdlqYqqc

Free Stuff Day

This morning started at the very pleasant hour of 9:30. It was a much appreciated change from yesterdays 7am start. We began with presentations from the various sponsors of our 'Free Stuff'. We heard from MD Financial (the financial services arm of the Alberta/Canadian Medical Association), National Bank, Scotia Bank, the Library, and we finished with a scintillating presentation (I only fell asleep three times) about Stethoscopes. We then got to go to the various booths and collect swag - pens, hand sanitizer, candy, note books, knee hammers, backpacks, etc. So all in all the morning was quite informative.

Following the swag collecting I went and purchased my first stethoscope, likely to become my constant friend and companion. As such, I am now the proud owner of a 'burgundy' Cardiology 3 stethoscope...believe it or not I do not feel endowed with any magical powers yet but I'm hoping they come. I have yet to listen through the 'scope but I'd imagine I'll hear a number of sounds that will have absolutely no meaning to my untrained ear...but that will come. When I described my stethoscope as being 'ketchup coloured' one of my classmates decided that coagulated blood was a more accurate colour. I'm not sure how reassuring a patient would find the description of a 'coagulated blood coloured stethoscope'. I might have to stick with red.

The focus of the afternoon's sessions was professionalism. We had a brief lecture about successful and professional students - a bit heavier than the warm welcomes we'd received earlier in the week. In fact, we heard about consequences and 'bad stuff' however, no one ran out crying so I guess we all survived. We then divided into small groups to continue a case based discussion of professionalism. We were reminded that we have now entered a profession. We may be in the larval stages but we are the lowest rung on the ladder of doctor-hood, and as such we have entered into a social contract that requires us to act in a certain fashion. That being said most of it seems like common sense and good behaviour so hopefully none of us get caught in any pitfalls.

We were told the ABC's of successful medical students -

A- Active learning

B- Balance

C- Cultivate Humility

D-Diligence

E- Ethical Behavior

According to this guide I need to make sure to eat some more vegetables than I have the last couple weeks and my days of procrastination, however only 3 years will tell.

My peers seem like a fantastic bunch of people and we are all glad to have put the process of applpication behind us. We commiserated today for all those in the position of applying to medical school. From this side it is something we are VERY glad to have put behind us. For those who haven't applied or who will be starting this fall, good luck, when you start med school it will still be painful, but it will be worth it.

We are done for the week now and I'm quite looking forward to a weekend with healthy amounts of sleep. I know that this isn't even a sample of a real week at school but I think sleep is going to become an even more precious commodity. So, the sun is shining and I'm going to find some groceries...preferably something green and crunchy.

Also, I hope to post some pictures of Dr. to be Lewis before too long, I now have a hospital ID, I'll be getting a white coat on Tuesday, and I have a stethoscope so watch out...I'll be the best dressed 'doctor' around come Halloween.

Orientation

At 1:00pm July 29th, 2009 the University of Calgary Faculty of Medicine Graduating Class of 2012 met for the first time. It felt quite surreal walking into Foothills Hospital in my dress clothes. However, the surreal feeling soon wore off as we began typical Orientation activities - slightly immature, somewhat enjoyable, combined with lots of waiting, insufficient food, and poor ventilation. That makes it sound worse than it was; however, it didn't quite live up to what I'd expected of Medical School. We paid some fees, got pictures taken, had a bit of a tour, and stood around a LOT.

Today was much better...although it started at the shockingly early hour of 7:00am. We arrived at school and began placement testing. I'm not certain of its purpose. There were three components - the first was a clinical skills test. In a team of four we opened a door and found an upper year student with a dummy and a table full of tools. We were told the 'patient' was not breathing and we had to intubate them. Our lack of knowledge proved to be deadly and our patient died, with chipped teeth from the laryngoscope and the wrong tube in their mouth. The morning continued with a variety of tasks, written tests, a bell ringer anatomy/pathology test that became quite amusing. I identified the crusty wart lesion and described ballotment of kidneys - when you register them to vote and give them their ballots for the election.

Following this activity we were divided into different groups and constructed a somewhat anatomically correct individual using a large amount of candy and some pipe cleaners...and we only ate a small amount of candy. After a break and lunch with the Dean of Medicine we had a more thorough tour and lecture, in small groups about the nuts and bolts of medical school at Calgary.

We were encouraged not to stress about choosing a specialty right away but to instead enjoy the ride and get some experience first through shadowing and other opportunities before we narrowed our choices down for the Residency match in the spring of 2012.

We finished up around 4:30 and tomorrow we get free stuff, as well as begin picking up our equpment. I'm going to get my first stethoscope...which for some reason I'm finding quite exciting. I don't now what colour yet but I suppose I'll know by tomorrow evening.

University of Calgary Medical School

This is another background post for those who are interested. There are 17 medical schools in Canada, all accredited by the same licensing body. What this means is that all the schools provide you with more or less the same 'quality' of education. The programs might be different in structure but each student has to pass the same exams at the end.

So, what makes Calgary unique and why did I choose it? Firstly the reason I went to Calgary is it felt right. That seems sort of nebulous and strange for a 'scientist' but there are some decisions you have to trust your gut on and this was one of them. The other thing is I had no guarantee of a spot at Queen's, even though I was on the list. I could have received word that I had a place the day after I took my name off the list, on the 25th of August or not at all and I wasn't prepared to gamble.

Calgary is a young school - the medical school started around 1970 and as such has a reputation as a 'young' school. It is innovative and on the cutting edge of clinical research as well as pedagogy. The biggest difference from the vast majority of Canadian schools is the 3 year program. Barring major sickness and failures I will graduate in May of 2012 which is less than 3 years away. Only one other Canadian school has this kind of program so it makes Calgary stand out. Instruction is based on 'schemes', cases, and presentations. Instead of taking five different classes - anatomy, pathology, pharmacology, microbiology, etc we have 7 different courses over the first two years of our degree. These courses have names like 'Blood, GI, and Fever'. We will study various presentations (e.g. a patient comes in with anemia) and then learn the various pathologies that could lead to anemia. Each course has a large number of lectures regarding the various components (anatomy, physiology, pharmacology, etc) but they are directed towards the specific presentation and case at hand. Our learning in the first two years comes in three forms - lectures, small group learning, and clinical core group learning. In small groups we discuss cases, lectures are self explanatory, and in clinical core group settings we visit the hospital and meet patients with the ailments we are discussing, as well as practicing clinical skills like intubation.

The third year of med school will be composed of the clerkship. During these 54 weeks we will go through a number of different rotations in the various core specialties - internal medicine, surgery, family medicine, ob/gyn, etc....and in three years I'll have an M.D.

All that will be left is to get into a good residency program, then perhaps a fellowship, and then find a job somewhere;-)

Getting to Calgary

After at least 10 years of planning, dreaming, scheming, and work I began medical school. July 29th, 2009 will be a fairly important date in my life I believe. I guess I should start with a bit of background.

Since I was seven or eight I wanted to become a doctor. As a kid I didn't really think much about what it entailed other than to know I needed to do well in school so I could get scholarships. As my years at secondary school progressed the knowledge that entrance to medical school was competetive provided sufficient motivation to keep me working. As a child and young teenager I informed the world that I wanted to become a neurosurgeon. As my understanding of the world, process of medical training, and life increased I became much less set on this specific specialty.

My three years at Acadia University in Nova Scotia and one year in New Zealand were all shaped by my intention to apply to medical school. I had fabulous years during my undergraduate degree but I think I can safely say that other than driving my relatives car off a cliff while in New Zealand applying to medical school was one of the most stressful situations in my life.

The application process began in September when the applications for the Ontario schools were due. Then, University of Calgary in October, and finally McGill in November. I had written the MCAT twice (another excessively painful experience) and I submitted my scores, hoping they were good enough. With the submission of all my documents I heard nothing from any of the schools until the first week of February when I found out that I had interviews at Queen's University and the University of Calgary. Then came the worst part of the process.

The interviews themselves were alright but they were completed by the end of February. Then came the agonizing wait. Between the 1st of March and the 15th of May I had no personal communications in regards to my application from either school. During this time period I completed my undergraduate (BSc, biology, minor-history) and returned to Alberta to await the results. During this period I was plagued with doubts, questioned my motivation, plans, choices to that point, and was quite unhappy. However, on the 15th of May I received word that I had been accepted to the University of Calgary Faculty of Medicine, and I was on the waitlist for Queen's. After some thought and discussion I accepted the position at Calgary and took my name off the wait list at Queen's.

In June I came to Calgary and found an apartment within walking distance of the Health Sciences Campus and here I am.