Well, in 12 hours I'll be back at school and in the midst of my Dx Imag. exam. Dr. Kuhn, our teacher has told us that up to 1/3 of classes have failed this first exam. It's completely ironic that Div IV should be the class I have most reason to be concerned about. For Rad Positioning we signed up for our rooms yesterday. My partner and I choose ...I think it was room C. or maybe B ...I don't quite remember but I would like to have been tested by either Dr. Kuhn or Dr. Guebert, they are the best at radiology and both seem like reasonable & fair men. My partner was a little concerned that they might be too difficult. However, Dr. Kuhn ran me through a timed x-ray set up and I was able to finish well within 5 minutes and Dr. Kuhn said I did a decent job. I did a mock chest x-ray which requires a slightly different type of film and remembered that fact and was able to set up the equipment with a 0.06 second x-ray time which is well below the tenth of a second which is recommended.
I ran a little late getting to school this morning and missed Cardio which, is a bit ironic because one of the things which caused me to be late was finding some worksheets specifically for that class. I rather regret not making it to that class because it is quite interesting. I was even thinking about it this morning after my shower. Thoughts in regard to residual volume (RV) in the lungs. Dr. Christy was claiming that the RV didn't represent any actual amount of air which got me thinking. If the lungs were void of air then there would be two possibilities. One, that the tubes in the lungs would be a vacuum or two, all the tubes in the lungs would be collapsed and, since neither of these options seem even remotely viable, I would have to conclude that there is actual air left in the lungs even after complete exhalation. I still need to talk with him about this.
I did complete my Lab Dx assignment last night or, rather, about 1 or 2 a.m. this morning. I sometimes think one of the main functions of our teacher in that class is to make sure we're not stupid. There are ways of thinking about lab test or pathology (another class he taught) that might seem intuitively correct but, that may not be the case. One of the questions in our assignment was counterintuitive to me. He asked why chiropractors should NOT utilize lab test. I found this odd because in class he would seem to be a proponent of all doctors testing their patients when appropriate. It did occur to me that if his belief was to have chiropractors test their patients with lab test then perhaps he asked "why not" in order to help bolster his own arguments towards chiro's performing lab test.
Friday is our Basic III midterm. Basic is rather intriguing. I know from experience that both my brother and his fiance have employed basic technique in their practice and I also know Troy has performed Lumbar pressures in patients with acute back pain. Oddly enough, when I came in there a few years ago one of my brother's associates was treating me and said he didnt' want to touch me because I was in such acute pain. I'm guessing he forgot what he was taught in Dr. Montgomery's class regarding basic. ..I'm thinking of another associate, I think her name was Michelle and she did take the time to show me how I should be getting out of bed or into and out of a car. These are things Dr. Montgomery showed us just last week.
In biomechanics we focused on the intervetebral disc which provide cushioning between our vertebrae.
There's so much work to do with all these classes. While getting good grades or grades good enough to move on to the next trimester is an obvious objective there is also a great desire to learn enough to be an effective and competent physician. I have been pondering the possibilities of becoming a mixed tri, meaning I would take two trimesters to complete tri-6 then go back to full time as a tri-7 after that. Some people do that by choice and some by default because of an insufficient grade. I need to get no less than 85% in all of my remaining points available in Diversified which, can be kind of a tall order. The written final in that class has a reputation for being amazingly difficult which means I would have to ace all the remaining practicals. We'll see what happens.
Physical Diagnosis was pretty fun today. We did a little more looking in the ears today and the teacher had an otoscope with a camera attached to it that hooks up to a computer. Maybe next week I'll have her take a pic of the inside of my ear and I can post it on my blog. It was noticed that my right ear has what looks like two perforations as if I may have had tubes in my ears at one time. I'm not sure and will have to give my parents a jingle to find out.
Today's pic is of the Welch Allyn digital otoscope like the one used in class. It was introduced by Welch Allyn February 6, 2008.
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