The Christmas holiday was pretty nice. At school, we had a tacky sweater potluck dinner with all the dental students and we even did a secret Santa within our class. People got really into the spirit by decorating each others benches in the sim clinic with tinsel and Christmas lights. Here is a picture from the potluck.
After break, it has been hard getting back into the swing of things. It just feels like the same old routine of study study study. Classes haven't changed much, except this quarter we have more of a focus on anatomy and physiology in our basic science classes. We've also started going into the anatomy lab. This quarter, we are not actually doing the dissections, but looking at cadavers that the medical students have been working on. The past few weeks was spent looking at the muscles of the arms and back, including working with cadavers. In the anatomy lab, we are each assigned to a table with a body, and there are about 6 students per table. They are covered by a big tarp that you fold back to expose the particular area that you are studying that week. Normally, everything else is covered with trash bags, (to keep it damp because dried out cadavers are not good for studying). The first time in lab, we folded back the tarp to uncover our cadaver and removed the garbage bags from the arm so that we could look at the muscles. It was okay at first because it didn't look much different from the pictures in the textbook since it was all bone and muscle. However, as we exposed the entire arm, we discovered that our cadaver's hand was not dissected and had bright red fingernails. Suddenly it sank in that this was actually a person and not some study model. Overall, learning about is amazing and it is beautiful how the muscles all work together to achieve the motions we can do, but learning the names of all the muscles is so BORING! Can you really remember the difference between the extensor carpi radialis longus and extensor carpi radialis brevis or between abductor pollicis or adductor pollicis? Sometimes it is hard not to wonder why I am learning about this. However, this week it is a little bit more interesting since we are getting into the heart. Today in lab I actually held a human heart. Since our cadaver was a tiny lady, her heart was pretty small. There were some other hearts in the lab though, and some of them were much larger than I expected, bigger than my hand! They also had a pacemaker on display, which was also bigger than I thought.In sim clinic, we are starting to work on learning occlusion (how the teeth fit together). Before break, we had taken impressions and mounted them on articulators that allow us to simulate the movements of the jaw. We cut off all the posterior (back) teeth and now have to rebuild them out of wax, making sure that they fit together without interference. This is to help us learn the intricate shape of the teeth so we can eventually learn to do fillings. If a filling is just the tiniest bit off in its shape, it can cause huge damage in the mouth. I definitely have a new respect for my dentist...it is not as simple as it seems. I will try and remember to bring my camera to lab and take some pictures of my project.
Other than that, not much else is new. I've been spending lots of time studying. I did go bowling with some of the medical students last Friday. Next weekend, we are celebrating some birthdays by taking a "party bus" over to Scottsdale. Hopefully it will be a good time and not turn into a drunken fiasco like I have seen happen in the past. Many of my classmates have the motto "work hard, play hard." While I enjoying going out with them, sometimes the drunken drama and debauchery can be too much for me. I'd rather stay home and relax on the couch than get wrapped up in drama. Nevertheless, I reserved my spot on the bus. Hopefully it will be a good time! I'll keep you posted!
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