With this post, I'll be featuring certain doctors who just made learning a lot more fun in medschool. Will update this from time to time. :))
Although a lot of our doctors slash lecturers are pretty good, some just are outstanding, funny, and awesome. I wont tell you guys specifically why since I want you guys to experience it for yourself. :))
ESPECIALLY the ANATOMY doctors - lecturers ( The Amazing Duo/ Trio). <3
Here's a few of them.
Doc JC, Doc JA, Doc Kent, the Amazing Trio. :)) Anatomy professors/ doctors/ lecturers. LaSalle born and raised. <3
Doctor Esperanza Uy, Biochem Lecturer, as one friend of mine described about Doc Uy, parang Showtime ang class. She is crazy good, strict, and fun. In this particular picture, we were having our lab discussion, and a classmate of ours fell asleep (the following day was our Anatomy Eval, so a lot of us were really sleepy, tired, and grumpy). She walked around the room, and when she got to a certain student who was sleeping, she would stand in front of the kid and stare until the kid woke up. :)) When our classmate woke up, she would just walk away and look for her next victim. Hahahahaha
Extra special Physiology class, our topic was Vision. :) Doc Dexter Santos graduated at the top of his class, and was in the top 10 for the Physician's Licensure exam. In this class, he used several episodes of Dragon Ball Z to illustrate several concepts.
Doc Francis Samonte, doctor lecturer at Physiology. :) We were waiting in line to do a Color Blindness test for Physiolab, my classmate and I were doodling on the board, trying to draw the circle of Willis (we had it in our Neuroanatomy Evals, very traumatic hahahaha). He walked by and said, "Who drew this? it that the Circle of Willis?" We were all kind of scared that maybe we did something wrong, and he just sat beside us and started discussing clinical correlations, and reviewing us on the interrelationships of the brainstem, spinal cord, basal ganglia, etc. Within 10 minutes, we had our minds blown by how simple the topics really were. (and at the same time, extremely complicated).
Every med student awaits then day when they get to fulfill their psycho tendencies and cut up a dead body...legally. HAHAHAHAHA
Yesterday we had our first dissection class headed by our uber- awesome Doc JC. There was this kind of crazy panicky feeling in the air when we were putting on our lab gowns and goggles, and Doc Jah, Doc Kent and Doc JC oriented us on the dos and donts.
For our team of 8, we were divided into two where the first four were to dissect first, and the second half stayed in the briefing room to do research, study the bones, and do clinical correlations.
Walking into the dissection room, we all felt giddy with excitment, heading over to our cadaver in the far end of the room.
"You may now uncover your cadavers."
All of us panicked and were pointing at each other to do it, and then we peeled back the cloth and plastic to reveal....of course, our cadaver.
Honestly, I had a different idea of what a cadaver would like. A little more...fresh, i suppose? The cadaver was black and leathery, average sized male, physically fit i guess because there was minimal fats when we cut him open.
At first, we were careful with the first cut, a vertical cut from the C7 to the Lumbar area, and we were all, "hey dont cut too deep, we might damage the underlying tissues!"
And five minutes into the dissection, we didnt even break through the skin yet! We dug in a little deeper, slicing a little deeper, and voila! we could see the pink flesh beneath!
This is just an example of what we did since we cant take pictures or video our dissection classes--out of respect for our cadavers also.
Seriously, dissecting is hard work. The skin is so tough and the connective tissues underneath are sooooo many, one of us was in charge of holding the edges of the skin back so that three of us could slice away at the connective tissue and expose the fascia, and then the underlying muscle.
In 10 minutes of dissection, we were sweating like pigs, our muscles ached from all the pulling, tugging, slicing, and craning our necks to get a better view of the connective tissue beneath.
BUT...IT WAS FUN AS HELL.
We were able to identify and take apart the trapezius muscles, the erector spinae, deltoids, and the fascia. It was awesome to take apart the body and see these structures in real life. And I have to say, the books have it down to the details, except, of course, for the color. For gross ana and dissection we use Netter.
Much better if you studied Netter beforehand so that when you dive into dissection, you dont have to keep guessing what you're looking at or if you already sliced up an important structure.
Before I forget, here's a list stuff that would be handy during your dissection class. For our first dissection, we really had a hard time cleaning up and prepping because we forgot soooo many things.
DISSECTION HANDY PACK LIST:
1. Gloves- you can go for the disposable ones or if you're really icky with those things, you can opt for thicker ones that you wash and use again (kinda gross though, but if its your thing, who am I to stop you :) )
2. Goggles- much better if they were the suction type, not the glasses type since some of the formalin can sneak through your glasses and it hurts like hell. You can buy this at your local hardware store.
3. Lab gown- you wouldnt want to smell like the walking dead and have parts of your cadaver staining your uniform.
4. For girls- wear flats, never wear heels to your dissection class, (honest mistake though). standing up for hours and walking around your cadaver in heels messes up your legs, and they hurt.\
5. Bandana, hair ties, clips- keep the hair away from your face, and cover up your hair, because it will smell like your cadaver after several hours of dissection.
6. Feminine Wash aka Betadine- most of my classmates swear by this. We have used rubbing alcohol, all kinds of soap, and nothing else except betadine removed the smell of dead body on our hands.I dont know how they found out in the first place, but it works. HAHAHAHAHAHA
7. Vaseline- and plenty of it. Needed to maintain your cadaver from drying up and preventing unwanted insects from swarming and breeding in your cadaver.
HSI really takes care of their students. one of the things they do is have this Guidance Day for freshie Med students, which was more of a talk on adjusting to the medschool life. And after 3 weeks of med school, I have to say that I need all the help that I can get to survive my first year.
Well, to be fair, it IS the adjustment period for every student, but, I think there's no excuse for failing a quiz (which I had done yet again, hahahaha--quiet sobbing) or being unable to read all the material you need to understand the lesson beforehand.
Honestly, I had difficulties in memorizing and understanding all the information that came out of each 3-4 hour lecture. But, the anxiety this caused me was lessened somewhat by this seminar.
I'm not bulls--ting you when I say that their pointers helped a ton load and you could actually see the results the day after.
Doc Tata started the seminar with a few words of wisdom to impart on our young fragile, impressionable minds (lolwhut? hahahaha) and made us think about our future as med students. Are you living the dream for your parents? Yourself? Your boyfriend?
Next up, Doc JAA, our doctor/lecturer/professor for Embryology as well as our Student Adviser. We sent a good part of the hour just laughing. He gave us the statistics on med students, what works, what doesnt work in med school, and--my favorite part--categorizing things to do into neat little categories namely: a) negotiable or non-negotiable.
He also covered effective studying techniques as well as the usual techniques practiced by students that excel, students that are average in performance, and those who perform poorly.
One of my favorites is using mnemonics for studying. He gave out a few examples (sorry, couldn't remember them that much, hahahaha) and my dorm mate and I tried it out while studying for Histology--Connective Tissue.
Another doctor, Doc Kent was also there, and I wish he could have shared more of his experiences also.
Aaaand finally. The rush I had that day.
Doc JC, shared his experiences on surviving his first year of medicine. He excelled in his first year, being exempted from all the finals in all the subjects, and at the same time, still being active in several student/academic organizations. Pretty hard to follow that, right? Well he showed us that it is completely attainable, if he could do it, why couldn't we?
Well, in one of the slides he presented, he showed....(drumroll please....) one of my blog entries!!!! He said that he came upon the blog on the internet, and he wasnt sure if the author of the blog was present already, or was in thE room.
GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH. I was freaking out in my seat. I turned white right then and there and my seatmate asked if I was feeling ok.
I actually wasnt sure if it was my entry because it was so long ago, but it was my post about why you wanted to take up Medicine.
It surprised me that Doc JC, or anyone actually from my school would stumble upon this blog. (I'm not sure who actually reads my blog, I sometimes think that they got misdirected to this page or something. hahahaha)
And what he said made me sooooo happy. He commended me for the blog/post that I wrote and said that I should come by the office and let him know it was me.
WELL, that sure didn;t happen. I was scared/shy as hell. And I didnt know how to react to it all.
But it certainly made my day.
THANK YOU DOC JC!!!!
Will be sharing more of their tips and advice in another post, kind of groggy from all the studying. :)) Happy weekend guys!
Ok, I know I'm kind of delayed in posting info about La Salle, but better late than never! Got this from the PinoyMd website, care of @jcskie. :) Flickr Photos of DLSHSI
This is the back entrance of the hospital. This leads to the canteen, the Wang Building, the Animo Center, the new library and New Med Building.
The Wang Building, where most of the allied health courses are, as well as the admissions office, registrar's, school clinic, and other rooms are located. behind this is Dormbuilt.
This is the park/open area behind the hospital and leads to the chapel and Wang Building.
Hallway of the Old Med Building, where most of the 2nd- 4th year med students take their classes. For the new batch, they will have most of their classes in the New Med Building. Woot! Woot!
Inside view of the Wang Building.
Outside of the school, Congressional Road.
Wang Building again.
The cute Bahay Kubo near the canteen located on the way to Wang. They like to call this eatery as the Cadaver Canteen since its located near the Anatomy lab. :)) But their food tastes great and 100% free of human flesh. nomnomnom.
Tadaaaaaa! The new rooms located in the new Med Building!
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