Today in Anatomy...

We removed our cadaver's leg. It was pretty gruesome. Possibly more gruesome than sawing her skull in half with a hand saw. Life is sometimes weird like that. The weirdest things will gross you out. Like, the third week in anatomy lab, we were covered in flesh and embalming fluid--formaldehyde. One of my lab partners burped and I yelled "Ew, gross," because I find burping in someone else's face distasteful. In reflection, that was probably one of the "cleaner" things I did that day.

Other than that, I now love anatomy. I do not know if that is because I am doing poorly in it and need to straighten out my act to pass the course, or if because we are finally covering the abdomen, and all your organs and mesentery form the most intricate, beautiful patterns I have ever seen. I spent a good hour losing myself gently separating connective tissue from the small intestine and associated organs. It was mesmerizing. It seemed like everything was an artery, a vein, or a nerve, forming crazy plexi and complex associations.

Much more interesting than your limbs. I swear, your forearm has seventeen muscles in it, and I think the majority of them are useless. Another point, you can survive without an arm. Hell, you can survive sans-limbs. It's not fun, but you can live. You can't live without your liver. Or your heart. But your life would also suck without your kidneys, pancreas, spleen, or your intestines.

Yes. I am really excited that we are finally learning something important in anatomy.

Sadly, my podiatry student lab partner does not feel the same way. If he's not working on the legs, he gets a tad restless. Restless leg syndrome, I'd call it.

Was that a good pun? I'll keep working on them. I don't think I can be a good doctor if I'm not good at puns.

Clinical Anatomy

We have a medical doctorate holder teaching our Clinical Anatomy course! This is very exciting. But also terrifying, because his notes aren't like any of the other instructor's. Regardless, this is looking to be my favorite section, and I'm not sure if it's because of our professor's quality as an instructor, or because organs are inherently much more fascinating than all seventeen of the muscles in your forearm.

Regardless, perhaps the most adorable and terrifying thing our lecturer has said thus far was this:

"The pancreas, with a head, body, and tail, is like a little animal."

In reflection, I realize that that doesn't sound very funny, or cute, or scary. But keep in mind this was told to me at around 8:30 in the morning. Everything is funnier, cuter, and much scarier at this time. I also have a lot of trust issues with my own pancreas, especially after it gave me diabetes.

Also, since my parents met while operating on a pancreatic cancer, I've always been a little worried that I might get pancreatic cancer myself. Though that may have a lot to do with my irrational superstitions.

No matter. Thinking that my pancreas is a cognitive individual is incredibly frightening.

And ridiculously funny.

All's Fair in Love and Warfarin?

During our orientation week, we were discussing how medical studies were often biased against underrepresented minorities. I was well aware of how drug companies will sometimes choose to only study genetic lines that they see as more "profitable." For the most part, this doesn't bother me too much. I get upset when I think that some people's lives are put in danger because drug companies haven't done enough research on how the drug differentially reacts with the large variance in human genotypes. Warfarin, an anti-coagulant, is a good example. But it's technically a free market, and there is a lot of genetic variation in the human population--I understand that you can't study everyone.

That being said, I was enraged when my thoughts on this topic were put succinctly by a female professor at the University of Illinois. I found this article on the blog io9.com. It's a pretty good blog, and they post enough science and medical articles to be interesting for anyone interested in science and medicine:

University of Illinois anthropologist Kathryn Clancy, who studies medicine and gender, told me that her "sexapocalypse to celebrate" will come when gender bias is drained out of medical studies. She imagines a world where:

Gender bias no longer influences pharmaceutical priorities or federal funding, and when we accept a wider interpretation of normal variation in human form and function. Issues like why black women have higher mortality rates for breast cancer, or why postpartum hemorrhage seems to strike so randomly yet is so deadly, or the black box of transgender reproductive health, all would be resolved before cures for erectile dysfunction or baldness. Finally, we would do away with all the underfunded, misunderstood syndromes – polycystic ovarian syndrome, chronic fatigue syndrome and premenstrual syndrome, to name just a few – and start to identify the origins of these clusters of symptoms.

In Chicago it is certainly true that black women have a higher mortality rate from breast cancer than white women. I actually helped my aunt--who works with public health at the University of Illinois at Chicago--with a project that would help inform black women where they could go to get free mammograms. It's one of the things that I would like to do more with in the future.

But to be honest, I'm also quite upset that no one seems to be working on a female Viagra. Either people assume that it wouldn't make as much money (which may or may not be true) or they assume that there isn't any need for it. Either way, the lack of adequate care for women, of all races, in this country is pretty substandard. It's not just "silly" things like female viagra, or spending more money on male problems--it's larger care situations where women are regularly put at a disadvantage. Whether it's the government putting up legislation to make birth control inaccessible for poorer women, or the fact that female heart attacks are less successfully diagnosed than men's, there's still sexism in health care.

Bllllech! (enGROSSed* by Dermatology)

Traditionally, Chicago Medical School tries to practice systems-based teaching. It's redundant, but after you learn what the heart looks like (physically), what it does (physiologically), and what hormones can do to it (chemically), you (hopefully) now a lot about the heart simply by going to class and being semi-attentive.

Systems-Based teaching has fallen apart after our first two exams: Pharmacology is covering autonomic nervous system; Microbiology is introducing itself; and finally, Pathology is teaching us about skin.

Now I could go on another rant about Dermatology. I think it's worthless. I've seen a dermatologist once, and it was interesting but also pretty useless. I also feel like most of the serious derm conditions (i.e., skin cancer...) are mostly white people problems. I know I should care, but it's just that unless it's a condition I have or a condition that one of my friends or relatives has, I don't care nearly as much as a "doctor" probably should (I don't know why I threw quotes around the word doctor. Suspicious...)

So my feeling towards Dermatology are pretty negative (also, somehow, racist). People keep telling me that sometimes dermatology is really important and not superficial. And while I respect this point, it doesn't seem like enough for me.

This has recently changed. I was told that 1) Dermatology has the most medical conditions/illnesses of any specialty and 2) Dermatology offers insight into internal medicine illnesses.

skin disorders can be manifestations of systemic disease.


*Title is totally derived from the great Alice Lee, a fellow compatriot of CMS

Ambiguus

In the wise words of our anatomy professor, Dr. Manion:

"If you really don't know exactly what something does, you probably shouldn't take it out."

...and that's why you have tonsils.