Anatomy

Anatomy has finally started! On Friday we had our first anatomy lecture, which involved using pencil crayons to colour in most of the anatomy of the chest. It was insanely fast paced. Our anatomy prof is absolutely amazing -- definitely one of the funniest profs I've ever looked at / listened to.

After this introduction we were taken up to the cadaver labs and introduced to our cadavers. That day all we did is basically stand over the bodies and expose their chests. I was definitely more anxious than I thought I would be for the uncovering of our bodies. I think it was just the big work up to the event (i.e. all of the lectures on professionalism, death and dying, respecting the wishes of the donor, etc.). And also the fact that it stinks in the anatomy lab like formaldehyde and phenol.

All of the anxiety I felt on Friday was definitely gone by this afternoon however. Today was our first day of cutting. We cut through the skin along the sternum and the costal angles along the rib cage. Its crazy how easily a scalpel will cut through flesh! We then proceeded to cut "finger holes" in the chest wall so we could pull the skin off and cut away the underlying superficial fascia (fat). It was awesome! We continued to dissect the pec major muscles. Its amazing how tough nerves are! Blood vessles rip very easily, but the nerves are like tough threads. We had our hands deep inside the body, underneath the pec majors, feeling around for the lateral pectoral nerves. It was so cool!

Now I'm not so sure that surgery would be that horrible of a position. I would still like to have patient contact in whatever specialty I end up in, so up until this point I hadn't really been considering surgery.

Endo Ender

Here's a pic from the med party at the Rum Jungle the night of the Endocrinology final exam. That is my "dancing" shirt. For this party the med class arranged to have limos pick us up from the hospital and take us out to the club at West Ed. The Rum Jungle is the largest club in Canada and has one of the largest sound systems in North America. Its probably my favorite club in Edmonton so far (I'm not sure what the usual crowd is like, because I've only been there on pub crawls and med parties).

Catch and Release Squirrel Fishing

This is a funny story: This Christmas while visiting home in Victoria my dad and I went on an adventure. A couple of days earlier my dad had baited his "squirrel-trap" with peanut butter because he noticed a squirrel hopping around our yard. I'm not sure why my dad exiles all squirrels from our property, but it has something to do with the possibility of them eating insulation or something like that. We ended up taking this squirrel for a car ride with us, up to the summit of the Malahat (10 miles away from home) where it was released into its new habitat. I figure it will only take a week before it finds its way back home.

Winning Gingerbread House/Cathedral

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Originally uploaded by alphageek101.

Isn't this insane. It took a group of 2nd year meds 26 hours to complete this gingerbread model of the Cathedral of Notre Dame. Notice the illuminated stained glass windows (apparently made from melted Jolly Ranger candies).

New Layout

I'm avoiding studying, so instead I've redesigned the layout of my blog. My new plan is to post photos on the right, and to post mainly text in the main part. I found this new website called Flickr which is awesome for posting photos on the net. It has a nice program for posting multiple pics at once, and you can even just email attached photos in order to have them posted. So much better than Picasa, which is what I have been using up to now.