Dissection Perfection

I would just like to point out that for once, I actually tried on my title! Okay, well, actually I always try, it's just this time I had a burst of creativity. For me. That's creative... for me. :)

Okay, now that we've had our nice title rant for the day, we can get on with real things.

8:00-8:45 AM                 Breakfast
9:00-10:00 AM               Public Health Meeting #3
10:15-11:15 AM                Lecture: Medical Implications of Survivalism
11:30AM-12:30PM          Lecture: Group Dynamics (Leadership)
12:30-1:30 PM                 Lunch
1:45-2:45 AM                   Lecture: Life in Sports Medicine
3:00-3:50 PM                  Medical Simulation: Eye Dissection
4:05-4:55 PM                  Medical Simulation: Neurosurgery Brain Pressure
5:10-6:00 PM                  Medical Simulation: Heart Dissection
6:00-7:30 PM                  Dinner
7:45-8:30 PM                  Lecture: Etiology of the Nipah Virus
8:30-10:15 PM                 Movie: Contagion
10:30 PM                         Floor Check

Today was packed full of medical activities and simulations. The first part of the day was full of lectures and the second part was applying the concepts to real-life situations and hands-on activities.

We got a lot more done in this Public Health Intervention Meeting than in past sessions. We nearly finished the keynote and put together all of the footage for the PSA. All we have to do is edit it!

The first lecture was given by the same neurosurgeon, Dr. Parsioon. It was all about what we would need in order to survive in the wilderness and how to use the simple skills we have learned. He also gave suggestions on how to make a survival kit and what to put in it. The second lecture was with Mike  Walsh, and we had to do a mini project where we "acted out" a scenario and had to explain and agree on what we would do in that situation. The third lecture was like a little autobiography on a sports medicine doctor. She was part of the athletic trainer team for the 2012 Olympics and has many other cool experiences.

The über cool stuff is here! (As a side note, let it be known that the title shouldn't imply that my dissecting was perfect. In fact, I pretty much massacred my heart. I just needed something that rymed with dissection.) Our first rotation is dissecting an cow eye. We each got our own and learned about the parts. It was really interesting to see the reflective tissue on the inside of the eye. This is what causes an animal's eyes to glow when you shine a light in their eyes in the dark. This also happens with cats. Humans don't have that thing layer, so when we have a light shone directly into our eyes, the light reflects off the back of our Retina which is red, making our eyes appear red for a split second.

For the nuerosurgery simulation, each group of four people got a skull. (Fake, by the way.) We were taught first about brain pressure, how you would measure it, and then how you would release some pressure. Using our skulls and a different type of drill from yesterday, we drilled a hole into the skull and then hooked up a catheter which would then measure brain pressure and release some if necessary.

I know, it looks easy, but there are a few different parts to it and  used a drill
people don't usually use until after third-year residency.

The last station was a heart dissection. We were using a sheep heart, which is very similar to a human heart. Again, we went over the anatomy of a heart and then just kind of went at it! Each pair had one heart and so we cut ours straight down the middle, which was the recommended process.

I failed at holding the heart; it was slipping from my hands!

After dinner, we had a short lecture which focused on the disease that the movie was based upon. The movie, by the way, was very scary/creepy/sketch. After, every single one of us had to wash our hands a ton and wouldn't tough anything!

~Rose