Upcoming quiz and finals.

This week was pretty good. Same stuff... more anatomy. I was feeling pretty confident in my knowledge until Thursday and Friday's lecutres on the Posterior Abdominal Wall (nerves), and the Pelvic region, but i'll get it.

**** Disclaimer **** Graphic Cadaver Description coming up****


In Friday lab some people did a Sagital cut (right down the middle, hotdog style) with a hack saw right through the pelvis. This essentially cuts the genitals, bladder, reproductive systems and rectum right in half. It is a pretty cool dissection, but also somewhat disturbing. It looks like the picture above.

Week in Review -

Stress level was way down from last week before the quiz.
I was able to spend more time with the family.
I'm still really enjoying the RIDE program and the people here. It is a great group.

However, Next week is going to be a beast. We have an anatomy quiz on Tuesday over Abdomen and Posterior Abdominal Wall, then our Common Final and Lab final on Friday. Busy, Busy, Busy.

This is a picture of Eric Nygard pretending to look like a doctor with his "spectacles" on. One fun thing about the program is the late evening study groups. I find that we usually only study as a group when everyone is tired of being alone and and staring at their computer screens. It usually turns into a really good time with a lot of laughing and and a little bit of learning.

Referred Pain... a follow up.

When I was in 8th grade wrestling (thats right, I used to wrestle) we would run wind sprints after practice. Well I used to get a really bad pain up around the right side of my neck and right shoulder region. I continued to get it off and on throughout high school sports. I always thought it was very peculiar that when I was breathing really hard that my right shoulder area would hurt - that just didn't make any sense.

Have any of you felt this?????

Turns out it goes back to what I stated before about the organs referring pain to the skin. Turns out this is the exact dermatome that related to the diaphragm ( the muscle responsible for making us breath). As you get breathing really hard the lining of the diaphragm starts to be strained and pulled away from the diaphragm wall. This pain is referred to the right side of your neck/shoulder.

C'mon- somebody tell me they have felt this pain and that it seemed very peculiar.


Here is another Living Anatomy picture. Denny again in the background ( and Yes, its that fun ), but this time Brad got to take his shirt off. Brad is in the WAMMI program, played golf at University of Portland in undergrad, and is an all around good guy.

First Week

So here is a picture of the "Infamous Denny" - He is one of the guys I study and hang out with. Did his undergrad at Boston College and got a masters in Public Health. I'm going to try and get pictures up of different friends each week. This way you can all know who I'm talking about.
This is a picture of "Living Anatomy". First we dissect the cadavers and learn the internal parts. Then we do living anatomy - This is essentially palpating each other for landmarks (xiphoid process, 4th intercostal space, sternal angle, ect) and drawing on the internal organs. It was a unique experience, and lets just say that I left most of the palpating up to Denny.



First week was rough - I'm striking a lot of it up to the fact that we weren't sure how to study for the upcoming quizes. We had an embryology lecture quiz and an Anatomy pin test (This is where they stick pins in the cadavers and then we have to identify the structure). I'm guessing I was at school about 50 hours this week. The first quizzes went okay. I think I did well on the embryology written and just okay on the pin test. This is a credit/no credit class so we just need to be able to pull a 70% or higher.... Trust me that this is easier said than done. We're not in undergrad anymore Toto!

Other thoughts on the first week in the RIDE program:

• I like the smaller group. There are only 28 of us and I know everybody by name. Everyone seems to get a long, which is nice.
  
• I'm liking Spokane. I have been riding my bike to school. There is not traffic and right now the weather is perfect for it. For of you who know the South Hill, It is a fun 20 min ride to school and a beast of a hill climb on the way home (about 40 mins). But it is a great workout and hopefully a good way to lose a few lbs.
  
• Class size - Can't beat it.
  
• Facilities - Can't beat it - Our anatomy lab is AWESOME!
  

I even made some time to do some rock climbing on Saturday morning with Josh Landrus. It was a lot of fun. My goal is to work like a dog during the week and try to take the weekends off.

Pictures

Here are some pics from Orientation:


My raft on the Spokane river trip



This is supposed to be some type of team building activity, but this looks a little to intense for that objective.

So, here is the RIDE team: Left Front - Brian, Liza, Joanna, Kaitlin, Camille
Back Left: Steven, Eric, Your's Truly

We really have a great group of people in the program, I can tell it is going to be a good year.

This is the entire WAMMI/RIDE group.

This is the ceremony that celebrates us starting dental school in the RIDE program. We got a stethoscope as well as a dental mirror.


This is me chatting it up with the RIDE director Art DiMarco.


first lecture Embryology Quiz and first Anatomy Lab Quiz on Friday. It should be interesting, still trying to stay optomistic.

Overload

I know it is early to start stressing out, but Oh My Goodness - this is like trying to take a drink from a fire hose.

Today was the first day I have just felt overwhelmed. I hate to admit this to myself but I'm about 90% sure this is how i'm going to feel from here on out.

1 1/2 hours pre class studying
2 hours of anatomy lecture in the morning covering embryology and the thoracic cavity.
1 hour for lunch
3 hours of anatomy dissection.
Going on 4 hours of studying tonight.

Now i'm sitting here trying to digest all the information. The hard thing about dissection, is that you spend so much time trying to make sure you are doing it right that you can forget to LEARN the anatomy.

Even with all the stress I can't forget that anatomy is awesome and its an awesome privilege to study on cadavers.

Stress - 7 out of 10 right now.

Cool Anatomy Fact

When are organs have been hurt they relay a pain signal to the brain. However, when the brain receives the signal, it can't differentiate if the signal is coming from the organ or the dermatome ( a section of skin that is controlled by a single spinal nerve - see pic). So we end up feeling any damage being done to our internal organs through our skin. For the most part, if you have pain in your stomach, you feel pain in your skin around your stomach.... but there are some weird exceptions. For instance, a pain in the mid back is often common with heart attacks.

Okay skeptics, I know what your thinking.... "When I have a stomach ache, its my STOMACH/GUT that hurts, not my skin". Well sorry to say, it is indeed your skin that is hurting, but your brain is smart enough to help you connect this specific pain with your internal gut, so you know whats going on.

Orientation...... Finally

**** Pics On The Way ****


15 months ago I took the DAT
14 months ago I submitted my application to aadsas.
9 months ago I interviewed at University of Washington
8 months ago I was accepted to the University of Washington
5 months ago I was accepted into the R.I.D.E program

3 Days ago we started orientation - Hurray!

So the years off to a great start. There are 8 of us dental students in the program and we are combined with 20 medical students from the UW Wammi program. We take some of our classes with the medical students such as Histology, Anatomy, ICM, ect. I have met some really great people and I can tell some great friendships are bound to be made.

Day One:

What you would expect. Free food, introductions, and explanations. Toured the facility and then had an excellent BBQ catered dinner


Day Two:

Rafting and Team Building: We spent the day floating on the Spokane river. No rapids but a very fun time and pretty much non-stop water fights. It was a good way to get to know our classmates and faculty.

Day Three:

Immunizations, Financial Aid Interviews, and introduction to ICM. I had to get the Hepatitis, Tetanus immunizations and a TB test..... it wasn't too bad though.

Then I had about 20 min alone with Carol Brown (financial aid). Can I just say that Carol is awesome. I was pretty stressed out about financial aid. I didn't really know how much money I was going to get or how I was going to get it. Trust me when I say that Carol has her students best interest in mind and she is an advocate for our group. One awesome thing that I learned is that we can get additional loans (on top of Government Help) from the UW school of Dentistry. This loan is at 5%, with no interest accruing while in school. This is a HUGE help, because our other options would have been Grad Plus loans @ 8.5% or private loans @ even higher interest rate.

ICM - Introduction to Clinical Medicine: We will be doing physical exams and taking patient histories on each other and patients at Sacred Heart Medical Center. I beleive the class is also based on learning ethics and professionalism in the medical field. This is a class where you have to show up, participate, and do what your told in order to pass.

On the Side:

One thing i'm trying to get used to is the fact that I am a WSU, EWU, and UW student all at the same time while at riverpoint campus. So far this has been pretty confusing, but i'm sure with time it will be no biggy.

Sorry this was such a long post - I'll try to make them much more concise in the future.

The Purpose

As I was applying for dental schools, interviewing with dental schools, and then waiting for school to start, I always had an anxiety of the unknown... I still do. I wished somebody before me had written out every little detail of what dental school was like. I had tons of question: How hard is it going to be? Am I going to like the classes? Am I going to be stressed out every week of the entire year, or will there be time to enjoy myself? I couldn't really find the answers, and trust me I looked. As school approached we were assigned a Big Sibling in the program. That helped because I could ask him all sorts of questions, but this was after the fact for him. He had already gone through it, so looking back on his first year his opinions and answers could have been tainted.

My goal is to create a real time update every week of everything - what we are covering, how much anxiety I'm feeling, what I'm loving and what I'm hating.

I hope prospective R.I.D.E students and all other dental students will be able to get a much better idea of what the R.I.D.E program is all about, as well as the first year of dental school.

Here is to a good first year.... I think it will be a good time.