This morning started out just like any other morning and then I proceeded to breakfast. After breakfast, I had to meet with Zach at the Commons patio to walk over to an organ recital with the Medical School 101 students. There was not enough space for the whole class to go on one day so we were split into the groups of the people who went in the wheelchairs on the first day and second day. Since I was part of the half that went the first day, we went today since there is another organ presentation on Thursday.
The Med School 101's T.A., Hannah, walked us over to the room that we were supposed to meet in. The professor had three trays full of covered organs and of those, 2 were from autopsies and the other was from a surgery. She started uncovering the middle tray, which had a normal lung on it and a lung that had been infected with empyema. There were chairs that created a semicircle around the professor and the trays. She passed around the lungs for us to see the comparisons and I learned more about what empyema is and its effects on the normal lung. The normal lung felt very squishy, but it was dark so I was surprised to see that it would turn black for a healthy lung. Then, she passed around a liver and lung that had been affected by lung cancer. She explained the 3 things to check when someone might have lung cancer: how much it metastasized, the lymph nodes, and how big it is. Usually when it starts to metastasize, it means that the person that is diagnosed with the disease is at a stage 4. The professor left the best for last, which was the most special specimen, and it turned out to be a foot. The foot was amputated from someone with diabetes since we also noticed the gangrene on it. The foot was something that was really new to me because I had held brains, hearts, lungs, and livers before but never a foot. I handled the situation better than I had expected. It was interesting to see the muscles and arteries still inside of the foot and what the bone looked like on the inside. Zach walked us back to our class after everything was shown.
We came back while the rest of the class was watching a film, but it was paused and will be played for our half of the class on Thursday. Monte played another movie for us, called "Sick Around the World". It was around an hour long, so it finished just in time for lunch. The movie was about a man who went around different countries that provides health care to all of their citizens to show how important it is that the U.S. should do the same thing. He visited Japan, Germany, Taiwan, Switzerland, and Great Britain, all of which had none of their citizens go into bankruptcy due to the cost of health insurance. Whereas, the U.S. had a majority of citizens become bankrupt. The movie was from 2008, so back then, health insurance was not mandated yet.
After lunch, it was time for everybody to do their 5 minute presentation on the drug that was assigned to them. The students who did powerpoint slides went first and then the ones who did theirs on paper. Only half of the class got through by the time it was 3, so I will have to wait until tomorrow morning until I can present. For study hall, we watched another movie called "Frontline: The Medicated Child". It was about the significance increase of disorders found in children. Many of them have been diagnosed with ADHD and the bipolar disorder. The parents have included their opinions of unnecessary prescriptions because they thought that 4 year olds should not have to take up to 8 different medications every day. Once the movie ended, it was time to walk back to Hank Ingram for 2 hours until dinner. Except, half way to Hank, it starts to become super windy and dark outside, so Hummd and I started running, but then the wind started to repel us. Luckily, we had made it inside just in time before it really started to pour. If you look closely at the sky in the video, there are 3 lightning strikes!
During my free time, I decided to work on my blog and spend more time in the lobby area of the third floor with another proctor, Victoria, and another floor mate. They were making friendship bracelets and as the days go by, I can literally see more and more girls coming to this floor to join the circle. I think that it is a really nice way to start and strengthen friendships (especially when you have just met them) and it is a nice time to bond with each other.
When dinner ended, I stayed around Hank Ingram and helped some of my friends tie-dye their t-shirts. I did not dye another shirt since I wanted the other people to try it since I had already have done this activity. After they were finished, we went to our floors to sign ourselves out and met back in the lobby to walk together. We stopped by Dunkin' Donuts for some of them to buy drinks, but the main focus was Jeni's Ice Cream. I got the wild-berry lavender and vanilla scoop ice creams and then sat down with everyone.
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| Where's Hummd? (She was being Monet for a day.) |
I felt very anxious while walking back to Hank because it was about to rain. I knew because it started getting windier (and we all know what happened the last time). I ended up running again to avoid getting drenched, but I think that Gwennie had a very memorable time outside dancing in the rain. Her obsession with the rainy weather is over and beyond. Glad to have made it back on my floor in time for the proctor meeting also! We did a round of Po(sitive)-Go(ssip)s tonight twice at the meeting and what they are, are essentially positive things about someone in the proctor group (and I was lucky enough to receive 4!). VSA is soon coming to an end and I am sure that I will miss everything and everyone.
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