Saturday, March 23, 2013

Spring Break


Yikes, you all are way overdue for an update.  I have officially made it to spring break! These past couple of weeks have been filled with exams and my brain is ready for a break.  But as much as I’d like to do absolutely nothing for 9 straight days, I have a ton of readings to catch up on and photography projects to complete. 

Yesterday morning I had my first day of gross room rotations, but I want to wait until after my second day to share the experience with you all (look for that post in 2 weeks).

However, I do want to share some exciting news that our class found out about this week.  Cherie, our program director, announced that she has been working on a possible new clinical rotation site for us…in Los Angeles!! Nothing is finalized yet, but a friend of hers recently opened a new lab in LA and is interested in letting us have a six-week rotation there.  It sounds like we would be able to see some of the surgical procedures in the OR and then gross those resected specimens as usual.  It would be great to see what goes on in the OR and exactly how these specimens end up on our lab benches.

The whole time Cherie was talking about it I couldn’t help think of what an amazing experience it would be, but in the back of my head I knew that I couldn’t afford the plane tickets or living expenses there. But get this – they are paying for our airfare and an apartment! This is a dream come true.  This experience is all I’ve been thinking about since she mentioned it; I can’t contain my excitement.

However, there is a downside. It seems as if only half of our class can go, which means we may have to do a lottery (may the odds be ever in my favor).  I’d be devastated if I wasn’t able to go.  I can already picture it now: grossing specimens in a beautiful, new laboratory and exploring the city with my free time.  And if the timing worked out maybe I’d even be able to skip out on 6 weeks of winter weather and instead be in sunny LA!


Saturday, March 2, 2013

Cadaver Lab Troubles


This week I thought I would give an update on our cadaver lab. We have been faced with a variety of obstacles as the weeks have gone on.  As I mentioned in a previous post, my group’s cadaver is a male with quite a bit of fat on him.  After we spent countless hours struggling with cutting the fat off the muscles, we thought everything would be easier from there on out.  We were wrong.  A couple weeks ago we dissected the neck.  Part of the embalming process created a jumble of indiscernible muscles on the right side of the neck. This left us with only once chance to get the muscles and vasculature correct on the opposite side.

Our next problem came when it was time to remove the ribcage (Side note – cutting the ribs makes a terrible sound, but it is oddly satisfying).  After we cut through all of the ribs, we struggled with separating the ribcage from the thoracic cavity.  As I looked around I noticed that all the other groups had their rib cages on the table and were already looking at the lungs.  The instructors came over to help us and they couldn't figure out what was causing the trouble.  After a lot of pulling, we finally removed the ribcage along with part of the diaphragm and some of the right lung (not supposed to happen).  Once again we thought all our troubles were over; then we looked more closely at the lungs.  Our right lung was about 1/3 (if even that) the size of a normal lung.  At least the left lung was of normal size, but we will have to borrow another group’s right lung to study for the practical.

Lesson learned: The organ systems/body of a cadaver may not resemble the pictures in the textbook!  In a way I’m glad that Albert (that’s what we call our cadaver) has been so difficult. It’s easy to get frustrated when things do not go the way they are supposed to, but a key component of being a PA is that you must be able to adapt! 

It looks like we’ve got 3 busy, exam-filled, weeks ahead of us until we finally reach a much-needed spring break. So back to studying I go!