Medic On Easystreet
A journey through medicineBequethal – “Let the dead teach the living to save the dying”
I thought I would end the long break from blogging with a topic that is regularly in my thoughts… the topic of body bequeathal, a subject that is still taboo in modern society; mainly due to religion and media scaremongering.
The procurement of bodies to meet the demand of medical schools who teach anatomy via dissection is a demand that has until recent years outstripped supply. Nowadays, due to the Anatomy Act of 1984 and subsequent updates, medical students have the opportunity to gain anatomical knowledge directly from a cadaver rather than a drawing from Grays Anatomy.
I believe this to have the following advantages:
- Gives the student a real 3-D interpretation of the human body
- Visual representations of disease processes
- Introduces students to the concept of patient death early in their career
- Book illustrations show things spaced out for ease of understanding, but inside the body things are unbelievably “jam packed” … Takes the wonder out of why cancer growth kills
- Gives medical students a real picture of lifestyle factors in health
Back in the 1800’s, cadavers could only be attained by waiting for someone to visit the gallows as their punishment for murder (Murder Act 1752). Two problems here… not a lot of hangings and virtually no women (I’ve been told some of their anatomy is different). Therefore the students were only getting part of the picture; the result is a generalised approach to all medicine as well as treating men and women as a similar entity (when we all know women are weird). As cadavers became more accessible, medicine, especially surgery began to become more scientifically accurate. This has lead to doctors being able to tell the abnormal from the normal with great accuracy. Can you imagine a doctor without a superb anatomical knowledge trying to read an MRI scan… “Diagnosis… erm, dunno, there’s a big thing in the middle”
Digressing slightly, to further illustrate the benefit of the current situation, I would direct you to the TV show “A Necessary Evil,” where the story of “Burke and Hare” was explored. These two guys made a small fortune by supplying bodies to an Edinburgh Medical School to meet the demand of its head Anatomist Dr Robert Knox in the 1820’s. Little did Knox know (or did he?) that these “likely lads” were grave robbing to keep their customer happy… Until they realised it would be quicker and easier to just Murder people, hence more money and a fresher corpse. However, I think they only got away with killing 17 because they were “cleaning the streets” in those times.
Essentially, donating your body to medicine means that you can teach the living how to save the dying once you’re dead. I can say for sure that the cadaver’s I’ve learned from in my first 18 months as a medical student have provided me with knowledge that will outstrip any book or lecture series in the world. So I say to the people who intend to donate their bodies, “you can rest in peace knowing that it’s almost certain you will contribute to saving a life (or many) in the future.”
Therefore it is my opinion that body bequeathal basically lays the first stone in a huge foundation of anatomical knowledge for an aspiring physician.
Ref: Garment et al, Let the Dead Teach the Living: The Rise of Body Bequeathal in 20th-Century America, Academic medicine, Oct 2007, Volume 82 – Issue 10 – pp 1000-1005
Drink Driving – YouTube special
This is officially the funniest video I’ve ever seen; a guy gets stopped in Serbia for a possible DUI and he’s asked to breathe into a breathaliser to test his alcohol level…… He’s obviously “leathered.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=03OPcn80Uzs
Befroe any lobbying peer groups get on my case, drink driving is not a funny matter and I don’t encourage it………… but I nearly peed myself watching this:)
Enjoy
Summer Holiday – Norway
600m above Lysefjord
As far as my summer holidays have been concerned, Norway wasn’t at the top of my list…. I’d invisaged Japan or Brazil or something crazy like that:-)
I’m currently on an island called Idse on the SW coast of Norway (near Stavanger) where I’m 30 minutes drive from the nearest shop. My girlfriends parents own a christmas tree farm which runs into a sizeable amount of acres where they also grow their own fruit and veg. If any other provisions are needed they just hop to one of the other nearby farms and they can lay their hands on eggs, strawberries, milk etc… All they’re missing is a feudal overlord 
Even though I’ve been working hard with physical training so I can keep up with the kids at sport next semester, it’s turned out to be the best break in years. I’ve been able to train in the baking heat with an extraordinary view of the local mountains and fjords. My daily activities incorporate things I’ve never done before, these include Sailing a small speedboat and strangely enough, painting the outside of a wooden house (yip a house).
However, my parents have just arrived to stay with us and get to know Suzanne’s parents more closely (lol, possibly to arrange my marriage); it’s like running after children as the two dads get drunk and the mothers look through old photo albums while looking on disapprovingly. Luckily I have a night off tomorrow when the “young ones” go for a grill party at a log cabin by the fjord, where Suzanne’s brother and his friends will delight in trying to do what they failed to do a couple of years back……. Get me hidiously drunk….. I’m a light-weight, but when someone tries to get me wasted, my liver (alcohol dehydrogenase) kicks into overdrive and just says no.
I think I can imagine building a house on this land with Suzanne and retiring to a Norwegian country GP practice; the relaxing life has too much of a call to ignore, with the prospect of golf and sailing to whisk the hours away. After my experience in St Andrews I think the most refreshing thing about Idse is that they are “better off” than the snooty kids in St Andrews but don’t act like superior beings, just because they don’t have to pay their own bills. Anyway, only a few days left here before I’m back to the busy roads and crazy worlds of my siblings and their many children:) The only refuge is I have another week off and a few games of golf arranged, surely I’ll win one:-P
Public Transport
Should we give up our cars?
Due to the expensive nature of studying in St Andrews I’ve recently been forced to sell my car and start using the bus as my main mode of transportation. When I foresaw this moment I didn’t imagine it would be too bad; after all, the government has been praising the money it’s been putting into correcting the previous flaws of the public transportation system and how it cuts back on carbon emmisions.
Well it’s been a week now and I was so irritated by the first experience I think I’ll prefer to stay in the house…… here’s why.
1. I had to attend a training session 5 miles outside the centre of Aberdeen, so like a good eco-warrior I got on the bus and proceeded to tour around half the industrial estates in Aberdeen picking up any stragglers who had to work late. Hence adding 30 minutes onto a 7 minute car journey.
2. After spending years travelling by car it can be pretty disconcerting belting along a country road on a bus at 50 mph without a seatbelt in sight…… it’s mental!!!!!
3. The journey cost me £5 return which is fucking rediculous….. ignoring insurance, tax and MOT costs, the car journey would have been £3.
4. The bus stop was at least 10 minutes walk from my destination.
5. I had an hours wait for the “hourly” service I just missed, so while I waited every “arsewipe from the place where someone moved a rock on tracksuit hill” drove past in his Corsa (1.1L engine with a loud exhaust!!!!!!!) and tried to stare me out. “Look where your going, knob.” I kept imagining a cow landing in-front of him while he wasn’t looking:-) Nothing against cows, although I do fancy a steak……. would also cut some carbon emmisions via the “backside Methane.”
So overall, including the wait for the return service I spent an extra 2 hours on the bus than I would have in the car. What makes it worse is that I only trained for 2 hours so not worth it. Anyway, I’d better stop blogging and get on with reading the latest autotrader…….. can’t keep this up for long.
Easter Holidays – aka Study Time
Due to the exam setup in the Medical School we have another midterm exam on the 13th April. Although this format allows us to scrub 100 marks off the final end of semester exam, it does mean I have to sit indoors studying when the weather has been glorius this week. Also, shifting the equilibrium towards study is the fact that I am sooooooo far behind this semester as the course stepped up a gear as well as me attending several nights out, two stag nights (one a weekend abroad) and a wedding. All of this meant I missed a lot of classes; if you miss a class that lasts an hour you have to spend two hours catching up…… that’s my theory.
So while sitting at the PC procrastinating, I’m having a little rant as I want to play sport outdoors but I have the whole of muscle physiology, Pharmacology, Metabolism and not to mention the anatomy of the entire upper and lower limbs.
Suppose I’d better get started and overcome this idiopathic apathy:-(
Stop press: Too much sex causes cancer???
Looks like the teachers at Sunday Schools around the world were correct when they said, “interferin with yersel is the devils work.” Why, well research recently completed at the University of Nottingham has shown a correlation between excessive sex or masturbation in 20-40 year old men and the development of prostate cancer in later life.
Medical and personal histories were taken from both 431 men who developed prostate cancer and 409 control subjects without prostate cancer. Among the men who developed cancer, 34% had masturbated frequently in their 20’s and 30’s compared to 24% in the control group.
The statistical link is supported by the theory that prostate cancer cells seem to be fuelled by excessive sex hormones that can also result in a high sex drive, hence possibly linking a high sex drive with a need to release that sex drive and prostate cancer.
However, after consulting my old Sunday School teacher, further research may need to be done on whether the guy gets prostate cancer before he goes blind:-)
Other findings:
- 59 percent of the men in both groups said that they had engaged in sexual activity (Sex or Self-love) 12 times a month or more in their 20s. This fell steadily as they got older, to 48 percent in their 30s, 28 percent in their forties and 13 percent in their 50s.
- 39 percent of the cancer group had had six female partners or more, compared with 31 percent of the control group.
- Men with prostate cancer were more likely to have had a sexually transmitted disease than those without prostate cancer.
Source: Dimitropoulou et al; sexual activity and prostate cancer risk in men diagnosed at a younger age; Brittish Journal of Urology; Jan issue 1 (p178-185)
OSPE semester 1
The OSPE (Objective Structured Practical Examination) began by observing the faces of the 9am cohort; similar to knowing the score of a football match by looking at the sullen faces of the supporters, thankfully by this marker things looked OK. I started at station 5 of 6 and jumped straight into the anatomy of the back by pointing out the muscle groups and spinal cord features on the cadaver. Station 6 was history taking where I did everything but hug the woman with the sore ankle as she was a dynamite actress:-) Also, I finished the interview the second the bell went, impeccable timing. Blood pressure was at station 1 and thanks to the professor who reminded me to use alcohol gel so I didn’t fail.
Then came the two freebies wonderful Bute Lecturers gave us in station 2 & 3 which were Eportfolio and hand washing respectively. Finally I finished with CPR……….. this one was quite funny as when I completed my first CPR cycle I stopped and said….. “I’d continue this until help arr…” when the lecturer interupted and said “oh, please do continue.” So a little more tiring than I expected:-)
Overall I think the Bute just wanted everyone to pass the first one as it’s more hassle than it’s worth to reassess a load of hungover students:-)
Exams – End of semester 1
Evidence supporting beer time:-)
Well, I’ve just finished some last minute cramming and I’ve just left the flat to meet the “big exam” head on. Three written papers and one practical skills assessment are what awaits me and my fellow fresher medics. This time the setting is in Younger Hall where they have set up the main hall to accomodate the Medics and the Italian students.
I chose desk A1 which was at the back left of the hall which I found to be the coldest seat in St Andrews. Upon the beggining of the exam I flicked through the paper and saw that question 1 and 6 were both the lectures I decided to skip and cover for the multiple choice questions……… ooops. A potential 20 marks lost before I wrote a word. Other than this there were two ethics questions that were again worded slightly ambiguously, I struggle to tell what way they want the answer presented. The rest of the paper (Pathology, Immunology, Anatomy, CT scan, Physiology etc) was quite easy and “presented no significant problems (Sean Connery).”
The Multiple choice was quite simple and should allow me to safely pass the first module. However, in this exam I was sitting in seat M9, could be a sign I should have applied to Edinburgh:-) Also, about halfway through the exam I started laughing as I finally realised I’m studying medicine…….. ha ha……. who’d believe it:-) Basically this realisation made me forget about struggling for marks in this exam and just enjoy the fact I wasn’t jumping through hoops to get in anymore:-)
Anyway, my theory is that exams are sorta like girlfriends………………
1. There’s too many questions
2. One word answers are never enough
3. There’s often no correct answer
4. The Ethics answers may need words like “shoes, handbags, or strappy back dresses.”
Eve of the exam
My first exam is tomorrow morning and due to my poor sleeping pattern I believe this is going to be an all nighter; I’ve only revised around 3/4 of the notes and discarded some of the lectures I believe will only arise in the multiple choice questions (famous last words) and concentrated on the main concepts and connections. I brought this on myself as I’m unable to focus only on the prescribed “learning objectives;” this is something I refuse to do as you get a sketchy picture of each subject strand and it will limit anyones ability to link each and every lecture we get. Histology is one example; If I learned only the objectives it’s very difficult to picture but if you link the structure to the function it becomes very easy to remember what composes each tissue type and more importantly why.
The other reason I read more in depth is it’s soooooooo damn interesting, especially the Pathology and Immunology………. their like the perfect couple.
Anyway, I’m supposed to be sleeping or studying rather than theorising why I’m behind in my study schedule ……… maybe I should read some last minute physiology?????
Reading week 2 – the price of good grades
This reading week started the same as the last; I had the whole semesters work to cover in 4 days which is nigh on impossible no matter how hard you work. Well, at least for me its virtually impossible to cram all this new information without some squeaking out the back, and knowing my luck thats what will come in the exam:-)
The good thing is that I have no more excuses, I have to organise myself better and learn the material week by week before I do anything else. This has proven more difficult than it sounds in semester 1 as being a bit older than the average medic (around 8-10 years) I have a prominent life outside of study where I like to keep my partner happy, balance the financial books etc….
When I had my personal tutor interview I was informed that St Andrews are expecting us to achieve better than most as we had a good grounding from the pathway to medicine course……. I agree in part but not completely as although we have good grounding knowledge we need to be learn how to be time effective with study, a skill the young ones have……… Me and my flatmate have to work in order to balance those books as well as tending to our extra curricular life which eats into the study time. Additionally, when I watch some of the school leavers in exam mode they seem so well prepared having just finished A-levels in the sciences and arts (helps with ethics), not to mention their dynamite studying and exam techniques.
In summary, I want to be able to improve or maintain the grade 19 from the first exam without sacrificing the things I run in parrallel. Judging by the first exam I don’t believe it’ll be that hard to acheive if being pro-active through organisation is the focus next semester. Once these exams are done the grades are wiped and I can test the new scientific paradigm in a new sememster.
