Saturday, January 31, 2009

Day 10 - Friday, January 30, 2009

Long day - Left home at 6 a.m. and except for a 15 min stop at home around 6 p.m. my day didn't end until after midnight.  Below are the classes I had today.
  • Philosophy
  • Spinal Analysis Lab
  • Histology Lab
  • Professional Development
  • Spinal Anatomy Lecture
  • Gross Anatomy 1 Lecture (2 hours)
I stayed after school for about an hour to work in the cadaver lab then came home for about 15 minutes then headed to Denny's in Edwardsville, IL and studied the gluteal region for anatomy.  If I did my job well at Denny's then I should know the 9 muscles in the butt ....
  1. Gluteus Maximus
  2. Gluteus Medius
  3. Gluteus Minimus
  4. Piriformis
  5. Obturator _______
  6. Quadratus Femoris
  7. Superior Gemellus
  8. Inferior Gemellus
  9. Tensor Fascia Latae
Looks like I forgot the second part of number 5 - Obturator Internus - I should have known that because 6 of the names end in "-us"  Now I just need to know all the origins, insertions, associated nerves, arteries and actions for each of those muscles as well as what pelvic foramen each goes through as well as the borders of each foramen as well as exactly what each foramen contains - at least I'm aware of what I need to know and the test isn't until this coming Thursday - I should have it down by then.

Thursday, January 29, 2009

Day 9 - Anatomy Test

Today was a blur starting around 5 a.m. and not ending until I finished unpacking a few groceries from the car and finally sitting down now at 9 p.m.  I pretty much got obliterated on today's Anatomy Test which still has me reeling.  I know I put in plenty of time studying but it needs to  be more focused and much more efficient.  I've scheduled a study group for this Friday night from 7 p.m. to 11 p.m. to start studying for our next Anatomy test.  Off hand, I know we have a Bio-Chem Lab and Histology test next week in addition to the Anatomy test.  

Our Group B dissection team started on our cadaver today and instead of observing, I opted to stay in the library to study for our Anatomy test.  I had the following classes today;

Biochemistry Lecture
Our teacher, Dr. Butweiler, has been teaching biochemistry for 30 years.

Spinal Analysis Lecture
We had a couple of Dr's speak to us before class about the National Board exams we'll need to take in order to get licensed - all I remember now is there are four parts and a physiotherapy test and we should save up about $5,000 for all the test.   

Cell Biology
Watched a 1/2 hour video today on the basic synthesis of organic molecules using the Miller-Ulrey apparatus

Anatomy 1 Dry Lab
took the test - got humbled - looking forward to our study group on Friday night - better effort is my beacon of hope right now.

Stayed after school for two hours of tutoring in Biochem.

It's only 9 days into school but my 1.5 inch binder is already full so I picked up four more binders tonight at SAMs.  I'll be moving Anatomy into a binder of it's own.  :)

Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Snow Days 1 & 2

We've been off school for two days now, still have our big Anatomy test tomorrow and still have much studying/memorization to do - hoping for the best which ....reminds me of a quote from Winston Churchill
"Hoping and praying for victory is fine but, it's better to deserve it."

Monday, January 26, 2009

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.  

Friday, January 23, 2009

Day 7 - Friday, January 23th, 2009

The second Friday of every new trimester the school hose a Tri-Party and tonight was the night for this trimester's party. Class ended at 3:40 and the party started at 8 p.m. and I had this 50 mile one way commute to consider. I spent some time in the library and finally ended up going home (mainly because I left my student ID at home and needed to get it for the party which was held at Hot-Shots on Manchester Rd in Missouri.

I kind of wanted to go to bed but figured the social interaction would be beneficial and ended up making it to the party a little after 9 p.m.

Day 6 - Thursday, January 22th, 2009

I got up at 1 a.m. today to get in extra study time for my anatomy test today. It paid off for the most part and I ended up with a 95% on my test.

Even though I was up very early today when my last class (anatomy) ended today I found myself disapointed that class was over and I was wishing it would have been longer. It's only about 6:30 p.m. but I'm dead tired and need to get to sleep! :)

Day 5 - Wednesday, January 21th, 2009

Osteoperosis is the break down and weakening of the bones - You've both probably heard about it before but I got to see x-rays yesterday of patients with osteoperosis that were amazing - 

in a  healthy patient with strong bones their bones show up nice and white on an x-ray but patients with osteoperosis have bones that are nearly see-through
PLUS - the bones in the vertebrae can become smashed down like pancakes if not kept strong - 

FORTUNATELY - we have osteoblast and osteoclaste cells in our bodies which break down and build up our bones - 
these cells WORK IN RESPONSE TO STRESSES WE PUT ON OUR BODIES - 

the osteoblast build up our bones and they'll take a vacation if we don't put any stress on our skeletal system 

being athletic and working out with weights in particular will wake up your osteoblast and cause them to build up your bones - 

Day 4 - Tuesday, January 20th, 2009

Biochemistry - 
The most relevant thing here is to realize that all of the biological functions in our body generate heat and our skin is like the radiator in a car which is used to help cool our engine.  At birth, we have a certain ratio of skin, in terms of surface area, to our mass or weight.  
If we gain weight then our area of skin does not increase at a rate equal to our weight.  For instance, a 30% gain in body weight may only result in a 10% increase in skin.  
Remember - our skin is like a radiator in a car.  Heat generated from biological processes in our body is dissipated via our skin but if our weight out paces our skin surface area (as is the case if we're overweight) then our heart will compensate by beating faster so it can circulate more blood and increase the amount of heat dissipated.  This is one reason we put extra strain on our heart if we are overweight.  

Spinal Analysis - 
we all dressed up in our gowns today and took turns being doctor and patient - we checked out the acromion process on our patients (that's the bony part at the end of our collar bone) and got used to finding a few things on our patients - mainly it was just our first exposure to being exposed in front of all our classmates - everyone seemed to enjoy the class and it beats the heck out of being tethered to a chair all day :)

Gross Anatomy 1 - 
We spent 3 hours in lecture and another hour for our first test - I scored a 100% on the first test  :)
It was kind of a gimme type test (as long as you studied) but still a very nice way to start out.  

The class was just fascinating - we're basically learning the exact engineering of the human body and I do mean exact.  we are currently in the process of learning every bone, bone landmark, muscle, action, nerve intervention, origin, insertion and all the names of all the blood vessels for the lower extremities - basically every thing from the hips down :)

We saw a heart from a cadaver today that had a triple bypass on it.  

We meet our cadavers on Thursday and since we've had a few more students join our class, the teacher is giong to take another cadaver out of the freezer for us.  

A filet mignon is actually the psoas major muscle from a cow.  In the human body this muscle starts at our 12th thoracic vertebrae and the other end connects down on our hip.  It's a deep muscle in the human body and if we do a straight leg sit up then that is the muscle we are going to use.  

The thigh muscles are absolutely fascinating - the four muscles that make up the quadraceps all come together to share the same tendon right above the knee cap then run over the knee cap and end at the top of the lower leg - when those muscles contract, the lower leg kicks out - it was just great to be learning exactly where all those muscles start and end up.  

Per our Biochemistry book - there really isn't a lot of definitive scientific evidence about the benefits of anti-oxidants but one thing which does appear to prolong life is calorie reduction.  basically, the less we eat, the longer we may live.  If the longevity benefits of rats could be directly applied to humans then we're looking at a human lifespan of about 180 years.  
and even though the antioxidant approach hasn't been fully proven there's still positive aspects of simply taking vitamins to ensure no deficits of needed nutrients.  

Cell Biology - 
We have to buy another book that wasn't on our list - it's a cool  looking book and we're going to be able to use it for four of our classes - it's a big Microbiology book that sells for $172.95 at the bookstore.  I copied down the ISBN number and ordered it online for only $136, including express shipping.   :)

just those four classes today - i've got a lot to do and learn - i'm *very* tired but need to get prepped for our Biochem lab tomorrow - 

All in all, this is a GREAT job - classes ended today at 2:40 p.m. :)
I made it to school early enough to get in a little workout - hit 315 for 8 reps on the bench press :)

Day 3 - Friday, January 16th, 2009


Day 2, Thursday, January 15th, 2009

another fun day, it's just like going to school again - more like high school than college because we pretty much stay with the same classmates each day ...I guess in that regard it's actually more like grade school :)

We met a few more teachers today.  Our Histology/Cell Biology class is taught by two different teachers.  One teaches the Histology which is the study of tissues and the other focuses on the biology of cells.  
Our Cell Biology teacher is from India and came to the United States back in 1971 and started teaching in 1975 at Logan.  When he took roll and called out "Dr. Scott Dukowitz" he commented that the name looked very familiar to him and I told him Troy graduated back in 1996.  He was very interesting and talked a lot about how much more advanced the United States was over the rest of the world in terms of pretty much anything scientific.  He stated that back in the mid '80s that the National Institute of Health (NIH) determined that the USA was about 50 years ahead of the Soviet Union.  

We saw our Gross Anatomy teacher twice today, once in the morning for lecture and once in the afternoon for a "Dry Lab"
At SWIC we learned the main names for each bone like femur (thigh bone) or humerus (arm bone) but we're going to be learning that each of the 206 bones in the body have different names for different areas of the bones.  From what I've seen so far it looks like each bone has anywhere from a dozen to maybe 30 different names to exactly describe which part of the bone you're talking about.  

Our study of muscles is much more in depth as well.  Just at the basic level, we'll need to know the origin, insertion, action, nerve intervention and specific blood supply for every muscle in the body ...and there's over 600 muscles in the human body.  :)

I learned the reason we learn minor surgery in Tri-9 is because in states like Oregon chiropractors are able to perform minor surgery as well as do things like deliver babies.  This starkly contrast with a state like Michigan where chiropractors are only allowed to adjust the spine and nothing else on the body which basically eliminates the appendicular skeletal regions which would predominately be the arms and legs.

Our Histology teacher is allowing us to obtain a rather generous amount of extra credit by participating in up to three studies ran by upper class students (2 extra points per study) along with an extra 2 points for making a poster ...wait a minute - That was our Spinal Anatomy teacher.

btw - I did find a spine model they have in the book store for only $89 and it has a 30% off sticker on it!  :)
It's a basic model of the spine with the pelvis attached and comes with a stand.  I'm sure I'll learn more about what's really needed in future classes.  

Our Gross Anatomy teacher is 40 years old and graduated from logan in the early '90s, I think in 1993.  She said we might have to consult more than one Anatomy book to find all the pieces of the body she labels.  She is *very* thorough.  She said when we study a particular region of the body that the things we'll need to know about the specific regions are "everything and anything" about that area.  I kind of like that level of rigor and high standard.  Her name is Dr. Jan and her right leg is approximately 14 millimeters shorter than her left leg.  :)

Our biochemistry teacher is a man with a very strong voice and has been teaching for about 25 or 30 years.  From a basic diagram he drew up the first day regarding metabolic pathways in the body we learned things like it's possible for carbohydrates to change into fatty acids (or, just fat) but it is not possible for the reaction to go the other way so fats can not turn into any kind of carbohydrate.  Fat can't really turn into anything, it can only be burned as fuel.  It's kind of a one-way street once fuel gets to the point of being turned into fat.

I've easily printed up over 200 pages worth of powepoints and slide show presentations.  The first Gross Anatomy powerpoint was 75 pages long.  

I think it was in our spinal anatomy class that we learned some embryology stuff, basically every time a fertilized egg starts splitting cells there's different names for each stage of cell division and just like a DVD I watched last semester, it would appear that the spinal cord is the first thing that gets developed (along with the brain) so, the command center comes first :)

We learned that some bones, like the patella or knee bone, develop after birth and inside a persons tendons.  It was also alluded to that pressure helps to develop these bones so when a baby crawls on the floor they are helping to develop a bone like the patella.  

Some bones fuse together every 5 years or so after birth so before age 20 or 25 a person will have more than 206 bones but a fully mature adult will generally have about 206 bones (there's always a few anomalies out there to help keep things interesting) :)

We saw several x-rays today of bones in the pelvic region and different kinds of fractures that can occur and some typical causes for the breaks.  In our Spinal Anatomy class the teacher had us take a break to stretch then had us turn to our left and then to our right to give the people next to us massages.  The teacher said this was a touchy profession so we'd have to get used to it.  

Tomorrow we have our first Spinal Analysis Lab

Day 1, Wednesday, January 14th, 2009

Day 1, Wednesday, January 14th, 2009

Orientation

From ASP to Tri-1! I spent eight months in 2008 from the middle of May until the middle of December in an Accelerated Science Program (ASP) to complete the remaining prerequisites to start at Logan College of Chiropractic in the Spring of 2009. I accomplished that goal and in order to do so quit my last job at the end of May 2008 in order to focus on my studies.

Today I had an all day orientation at Logan and officially started my rank as a Tri-1 student. There are 10 Trimesters to get through in order to become a Doctor of Chiropractic and somewhere between 70-80% of the students in a given class actually finish the program on time. 

I actually started this blog on Day 8 as a means of sharing and am backfilling previous days from emails I shared with my family about my new experiences at Logan.