Subaqua Sternal Rubs

After reading a very sombering email from a praticing physician about the state of American health care and all the new regulations, restrictions, and other legislatively and legally-induced BS that make practicing medicine a nightmare nowadays, he added this joke at the end to lighten my mood:

A true story for the end:
Mother calls pedriatic ED: "My child's temperature is 450 Degrees F."

Triage nurse asks: "Madam, how exactly did you determine this?"

Mother on phone : " Very easy. I turned on the oven to 450 degrees, put my one hand in the oven, my other hand on my childs forehead and both hands felt the same ! "

Yesterday I participated in another AMSA (American Medical Student Association) Health Fair. Basically we medical students go out into the community and do histories, physicals, vital signs (blood pressure, pulse, etc), and other various screenings (blood glucose, vision, hearing, etc.) Those patients where an abnormality was discovered were examined by a real doctor (one of the clinical tutors from our path lab). A lot of the "patients" just came out because heard it on the radio and wanted a general check up. Most of them didn't really have anything wrong with them. Other things we found out: 1) If you don't take your anti-hypertensive (blood pressure) pill, your blood pressure will be high, and 2) if you don't take your oral diabetic pill, your blood sugar will be high. Who woulda thunk. Anyways, there was this one gentleman, 26 years old, that complained of bleeding from the mouth when the sun was too hot, as well as when he wakes up in the morning after sleeping. Mouth/gums looked fine, and the case had everyone stumped because no one could think of a etiological link between the sun being hot and oral bleeding. Can anyone out there think of anything?

So is senility setting in? Yesterday, I forgot my Physical Diagnosis notebook in the lab, and had to run back that evening to pick it up. And today in Path Lab, I saw my Micro binder sitting on the professor's "dias" as he called it. Yeah, the last time I had my binder in there was for the Micro computer-based lab on Monday. I totally didn't even know it was missing for a week, how great is that?

Anyways, for anyone worrying about the academic performance implications of my little brain fart, I still have 2.5 weeks until the next exams, and will start studying the weekend. Oh, and yeah, since we covered a lot of the issues already in Path, Micro won't be all that much more to learn. Oh, and yeah, I am comfortable with my GPA right now, and I plan on keeping it that way.

Update: I managed to get 7 out of 10 right (and my bonus point) on the online quiz covering this weeks material without even looking at it. That means I only have 30% left to study, right?

So PD Lab was worth going to for once… Not only did I learn something for once (though I hope I didn't look like too much of an ass for answering a lot of questions. Couldn't help it — they drilled cardio into us in EMT school), but it was humorous as well. Some of the pearls:

Tutor to Student Model: I didn't get much of a thrill palpating (touching) your chest.

Tutor: For the best thrill, lean the patient forward.

Student 1: We can't see the pulsation in the internal jugular vein
Tutor: Oh it looks like she has a hickey.
Student Model: Oh, I don't have time for that in medical school.
Student 2: Oh, I do.

Needless to say, the rumors will soon be flying. (Seems that people have nothing better to do on a small island than spread rumors.)