Day 8, Monday, January 26th, 2009

Even though today was our third week of class it was our first Monday at Logan College since we started on a Wednesday in week one and were off for Mr. Luther King day for week 2.  

Philosophy

Today in Philosophy we talked about stress and the General Adaptation Syndrome (GAS) supposedly everyone goes through in response to stress.  Apparently, this was thouroghly studied in the early 60s with mice, then cats, followed by dogs and eventually humans.  In every case studied, GAS produced the same triad of symptoms.  These symptoms were

1. Adrenal cortex enlargement (stimulation)
2. Thymus shrinking/atrophy (and lymp tis.)
3. Ulceration and bleeding in stomach and duodenum.

Stress itself develops in 3-4 stages depending on the cite sourced - these are generally

1. Stressor (alarm reaction)
2. Physiological adaptation (resistance)
3. Exhaustion (fatigue)
4. Death

Probably the most interesting part of today's class was the introduction of the term iatrogenic which refers to the death of a patient due to allopathic "health care" which may more aptly be termed "sick care" because that is mainly what we have in this country.  It would appear that the number one cause of death may very well be traditional medicine.  Iatrogenesis refers to the adverse effects or complications caused by medical treatment or advice.  

Spinal Analysis Lab

This is a great class where we get hands on practice with fellow students who pose as patients.  Today we located the 6th cervical vertebrae, C6, and were able to feel it jut forward as the patient tilted their head back.  We are also continuing to locate the posterior superior illiac spine and greater trochanter.  

I've found that people watching has become different for me because now I mentally try to draw a plumb line from peoples ears to their acromion process to see how well their neck is aligned.  When I see an infant, I'm thinking the head of their femer is at a 140 degree angle to the acentabulum and will be around 136 degrees at age three and drop down to 130 degrees as an adult.  When I see the posterior side of an individual I'm aware of the angle their femur makes as it traverses down to the tibua, otherwise known as the Q angle and that the Q angle is greater in women than men - generally speaking.  

Anatomy

We only had an hour of anatomy today.  I was already aware of the obturator foramen in the pelvis but learned today that the greater and lesser sciatic notches in the pelvis also form foramens (holes) in the pelvis which have their own sets of muscles and nerves which run through them.  I also learned the piriformis muscle actually runs through one of the sciatic foramens and not through the obturator foramen as I had previously thought.  

We have a test this Thursday in anatomy and it will be the most difficult to date.  I scored a 100% and a 95% on the first two test and hope I can keep up the grade on this next test. 

Tomorrow I am scheduled for my first disection of the human body.  I've already met the body and obtained my lab coat, dissection instruments and gloves.  We may have a snow day tomorrow - time will tell.  I will personally be working on a male patient.  

Spinal Anatomy

we saw some really disturbing pictures in class today - there was even a warning slide to brace us for what was to come - I'm not sure how to delicately put this but the first was a baby born without a head and the picture was even worse than that sounds because of the malformation of the region about the shoulders which was mainly a bloody mess.  The other defect we saw had to do with a baby born without the top of his skull and some other mis-features.  

The point of the slide was mainly for women of child bearing ages to make sure they had adequate amounts of folic acid in their diet.  

When the deformed parts of the children we saw are first formed is during about the third week of development and in many cases women may not be aware they are pregnant during that time which is why it is recommended that all women suppliment with folic acid during the times of their lives when they are capable of becoming pregnant because adequate folic acid could have prevented both deformaties we saw today which, naturally, resulted in the deaths of the infants either immediately or within a few hours of birth.