Read Between the Lines

We have a pathology professor--he seems like a nice, funny man--who's voice slowly deteriorates from a standard, older person's grumble to a dying, dehydrated, lip smacking affair. It's his third hour of lecturing. I get it. You need water. I understand this.

WELL THEN GET A DRINK OF WATER.

I should explain. I can't stand several things in this world of a billion annoyances. But the thing that bothers me a lot and is also quite common is hearing. people's. mouths. Mouths are disgusting, disgusting places. In general I can't stand the sound of people eating. This bothers me to no end. I have had to yell at people to stop, I have gotten into so many annoying fights with my little sister who--is an amazing person--but who needs to understand that I simply can't stand listening to other people eating and no, I will not get over it. F*CK that. I AM ACTUALLY ENRAGED RIGHT NOW. Because I am sitting in class and my professor, teaching pathology--an amazing course--keeps making eating sounds over his goddamn microphone. I swear to God I might leave. I want to leave. Maybe I'll put in headphones.

I have put in headphones. I no longer want to pay attention in class, however, and am pretty upset. The only other times I feel this irrationally upset, I am usually PMSing. I know it's irrational, but I am clearly having a physiological response. My breathing is shallower, more rapid--my chest is tightening. I may pass out. 

Worst of all, this is now affecting my note taking. BECAUSE HOLY SHIT, when something doesn't make sense, I get slightly upset. When I am already upset and things don't make sense, I break down.

Medicine is not for the easily incensed.

Exemplary Professional Behavior (possible extra credit points for being a good human being)

personal accountability: dependability, initiative, dress

demeanor: humility, compassion, adaptability

ethical behavior: honesty, fairness, confidentiality

relations with others: respect, communication, acceptance

relations with the community: teamwork, service, stewardship

Yes, what is immunotherapy?

Seriously though.... #stockphotofail

Lazy Leukocytes

I love it when medicine gives serious conditions funny names. Personally, I'm offended by the term diabetes, because it sounds super cute with all those "eee" sounds. But clearly egregious is the "Lazy Leukocyte Syndrome." Leukocytes (white blood cells of the immune system) are incapable of migrating from the circulating blood into tissues to fight infections. It's a serious, serious condition because it is fatal. Newborns either receive a successful bone marrow transplant or they die. Thanks science.

The Only Dead People We Used To Know Were Our Cadavers...

Everything is a lot less "optimistic" second year of medical school. I'm not talking about my life, or the lives of my fellow medical students: I'm talking about patient vignettes.

Ah yes, the patient vignette. The only thing connecting your two years stuck in academia to the promise of one day being out there, in the real world, actually practicing a thing called medicine instead of learning and re-learning the Kreb's cycle.

M1 year, patient vignette's were short, simple, and straightforward. We were only given enough information to suggest a disease, it's symptoms, and its treatments. That's all we got and that was all we needed. Even by the end of the year, in neuroscience, we were still hearing only positives. When patients--real patient's whose stories were published in medical journals--suffered from strokes or rare hemorrhagic conditions we were always told that they survived the accident. It was pretty amazing that someone could survive such a severe intracranial bleed, but it made us hopeful for all the good we'd be able to do one day.

M2 year is nothing like that. The real people whose stories we read about and analyse, the real people whose flesh and tissue we stare at for prolonged hours, they were dying and now they are dead. If you are looking at a tissue sample in pathology, that tissue belongs to a person who died a long time ago. No attempts are made to hide the truth from us any longer: This man had a myocardial infarction. He died three days later. Here is his heart. It has coagulative necrosis arising from ischemia.

Even in the case of clearly fictional patient vignettes, things are inexplicably depressing. Here is a practice question from a pharmacology practice question:

A pregnant woman delivered by C-section when it was determined that the baby was in a breech position. After the delivery, she was given a prescription for codeine, a commonly used analgesic given after labor for pain associated with C-sections. The baby began to exhibit intermittent periods of difficulty in breastfeeding and lethargy starting on Day 7. On Day 12 the baby exhibited grey skin and decreased milk intake and was found dead on Day 13. 

I stopped reading after that.