A busy beginning

Fourth year has suddenly begun in a pace faster than what neither I, nor my colleagues, could ever anticipate. The first four courses, ranging from a week each, included Clinical Anatomy, Bioethics, Psychotherapy and Immunology - the latter still ongoing.

Additionally, Pharmacology just won't cut us some slack that easy and hang over our shoulders as a grim shadow and reminder of the final exam to come, with both practicals and lectures running simultaneously.

So, from "early" morning to late evening we've running between the weekly yawn-generating morning subject and the busy Clinical Anatomy dissections in the afternoon until about when both the hour and minute hand of the wrist watch point to six.

I think we all knew that the exams will be plentiful this year so mentally we settled with the idea of taking exams more or less every week. However, time is a precious resource and one have to spend it wisely in order to manage the exams in such short notice, especially when being used to have weeks for preparation as was the case in the second and third year. Using the time in between lectures is a good idea, and pushing oneself to go on reading after school and at weekends is paramount.

Fortunately for me anatomy comes easy, as I've repeated it during second year. This gave me some time to focus on the other topics, i.e. biomedical ethics and psychotherapy.

Unfortunately, to my big disappointment, these topics seems to be of rather low priority and judging after the event I think I spent too much time in proportion to the actual gain. A real shame indeed, as I believe ethics will be an important part of the future praxis.

Back to exams. When to take exams and general planning of one's studies is alwas a topic of discussion among us students. I figured that booking them as early as possible would be the way to go and it proved to work out well so far. Postponing only makes a student's life difficult, even thou doing so is tempting.

Semper Paratus, Scientia ac Labore, no procrastination

The Structure of the Final Anatomy Exam

I will write as if anatomy is a subject of the past without revealing too much - thus keeping the final battle review unwritten for yet some time.
There's a lot to cover leading up to the exam and one part is the preparation work and the anxiety that comes with it.

The system of the University is built up so that you need one ore more credit(s) from each subject in order to advance to the next semester. Credits are obtained in the end of each course, or earlier if one manage to pass a special test. They are earned by staying within the limited amount of absences, usually four, and by passing all the checkpoint tests during the course.
Of course all the tests tended to accumulate during the end and one have to plan it correctly. As the analogue signatures of credits are getting signed in the index book, or "the golden book of God" as one of my friends once put it, one can seriously starting prepare for what really matters: the final exams.

The Anatomy exam can be broken down in three steps starting off with a straight forward slide test composed of 30 images, schemes or drawings with one unidentified label respectively. You need 21 correct answers to pass to the next round.
All indexes of the students that passed are then collected and randomly distributed to the professors, thus, you never know which examiner you will face until after the slide test (not that it would matter).
The students that failed are being called and sent home while the rest are placed with their examining professor. Two further tasks must be conquered; the practical dissection and the oral examination. Some students begin with the practical part and some directly to the oral.

The dissection is rather straight forward. You enter the dissection rooms to your examiner who starts of at one of six stations: bones, cadaver (muscles), thorax, abdomen, brain and CT/X-Ray. You answer the questions and are graded accordingly.

In the last part of the final exam, the part that you in my honest opinion ought to fear the most, you will be forced into a face off with one of the professors. The oral part is composed of no less than 191 questions, or rather, categories. Out of the 191 you pick a randomized number coding for a set of four question. Here are the division, total number of questions for each category (in brackets) and some examples:

Skeleton and its connections, muscles, fascias, osteofascial compartments (30)
-Bones and joints of foot including X-ray images, plantar arches and their support
-General features of striated muscle, its auxiliary structures, motor end plate, motor unit, muscle spindle, Golgi tendon organ, denervation atrophy
-Muscles and fascias of thigh, femoral triangle (draw transverse section and boundaries)
Gastrointestinal tract (17)
-Pharynx – description, syntopy, blood supply, innervation, swallowing reflex
-Liver - structure, nutritional and portal vascular bed, intrahepatic bile ducts
Respiratory system (8)
-Trachea and bronchi, bronchial tree - description (draw scheme), structure, syntopy, tracheotomy
-Pleura – visceral and parietal, borders of pleura, pleural dome and recesses, pneumothorax
Urinary and reproductive system (15)
-Urinary bladder – structure and position, fixation and syntopy in male and female (draw scheme)
-Prostate - structure, topographic relations, prostatic urethra, ejaculatory ducts
Heart (7)
-Heart - description, chambers, heart wall arrangement (draw section through ventricles)
-Coronary arteries, coronarogrpahy, veins and nerves, lymphatics
Arteries (9)
-Common carotid artery, internal carotid artery
-Abdominal aorta, unpaired visceral branches and their clinically important anastomoses
Veins (8)
-Cranial veins, sinus durae matris, intracranial tributaries of internal jugular vein
-Superficial and deep veins of lower and upper extremities, varicose veins
Lymphatic system (8)
Central nervous system – CNS (29)
-Cerebellum – structure, subdivision and functional organization
-Association and commissural fibers of hemisphere, internal capsule (draw scheme of tracts in internal capsule)
-Lemniscal system (dorsal column tract), proprioceptive and tactile sensation
Peripheral nervous system – PNS (20)
-General structure of the spinal nerve, perineurium, vertebromedullar topography, segmental innervation, radicular areas, dermatomes
-Radial and axillary nerve, paralysis
-Abdominal and pelvic sympathetic system, pre-vertebral plexuses and ganglia
Sensory organs, skin, endocrine glands (13)
-Eyeball (draw sagittal section), cornea, sclera and vitreous body
-Choroidea, iris, ciliary body, eyeball chambers, circulation of aqueous humor, glaucoma
Regional Anatomy (27)
-Topography of abdominal wall, blood supply, innervation and surface projections of abdominal organs
-Inguinal region, inguinal canal, hernias (draw schema of inguinal canal)
-Topography of supramesocolic part of peritoneal cavity (draw transverse section through lesser sac)

The complete list of questions is available here.
As you can see the categories are rather wide and wont cover all the possible questions the Professors can come up with - more or less anything they have touched (and to be honest also not touched) during the year.
I am amazed over the fact that all of us, who passed, have managed to learn such magnitude of information in 9 months of time. Combined with the knowledge of Histology we should be able to zoom in on any part of the human body and be able to explain the structures building up that part, both macro- and microscopically.
I hope the rest of my colleagues will fight for a good grade this week, the fourth round of examinations, and that their outcome will be satisfying.

Luck comes with the prepared...

Great Measures in Busy Times

As usual, I make a meme-spoof...

So here I am again, in a defensive stance against myself and the optimistic thought that keeping this journal alive would be a piece of cake. It most certainly is not.
You all most probably know why, especially if you've gone through the same thing and for those who yet have the experience ahead of them I will in the following posts tell you a bit of what to expect.

Since the previous time I posted here, about a sunny day filled with highlights if I recall it correctly, there have been both ups and downs.
March 22nd is the date stamp and, to be perfectly honest, all that follows is rather blurry.

I can happily say that I am alive and more than just alive. I lived through what might have been the most intense three months of my life "so far" - and with that said in quotation marks - I expect more of it.
If I look back the winter was just about to turn its back on us and spring came rushing in through the door. Anatomy and histology was just about to step up their games by introducing the head-on Anatomy Dissection course simultaneously with the Peripheral and Central Nervous System (henceforth PNS & CNS), all together stretching over one month.
I was prepared for a rough ride but when Histology finally swapped into developmental Embryology, a complete different subject, it just hit me in the face like a metal bucket filled with icy water - and by that I mean water first and bucket next.

As the finish line got closer for every day and with more and more material to conquer I entered a sort of pseudo-doubting roller coaster. The only way to cling on to sanity was to prioritize, hence, histology simple had to end up on the self for the time being.

With my mind freshly set on Anatomy there were days I felt I had it under control. I passed all my practical tests with good marks and was, with a good push in the back from Kristyna and my colleague Gal, almost ready to book a pre-term final exam.
CNS dragged me back into obscurity and that was the phases I gently swayed between; pre-term or not pre-term. Gal is amazing and I admire her for staying on track with her plan. Damn sure, she did it to the end - as one of the very first to fight and survive against the professors of Anatomy.
I failed in staying to the plan and scheduled my anatomy one week after the school ended, something that after the event seems to have been a good move anyway. Since I'm not much for "what-if's" I tend to save my energy not speculating whether it would have been better to do the pre-term.

The last day of school came to an end and the real preparation could begin.
My own final battle with Professor Elizka sure is a nice story, with an outcome that I am mightily proud of, and I am sure I will find the inspiration to give you the details in a separate post later on.

But for now I'm satisfied, and done, with wrapping up the prologue...

Winter Semester finally came to an end

There's a thing or two that happened and now I got the time to put together a neat summary.

I left off by telling you I failed my first biophysics exam. A lot of different parameters influence the examination and this was my first encounter with this type of examination.
I could write many positive things about it, but more importantly also a lot of negative things - in a constructive way - although I wont bore anyone with such details unless they are interested.
The following week I dedicated to the gym, the booklet and to sleep.
I studied a lot and threw the notes that I've been studied from in the trash bin. Instead I changed perspective and started to break down the green booklet thoroughly. It helped a lot and that's just another proof that there's no point of taking short-cuts.

I rebooked the exam to the upcoming Thursday and this time I felt ready. My questions was good and I switched tactics. Instead of leaving out knowledge on the preparation paper I wrote a lot, and didn't leave anything out, even if is was just remotely connected to my topic.
I believe that when the examiner saw my papers he understood I knew at least something and therefore didn't push me hard.
It took me approximately a minute to explain the first topic; Light Propagation, properties and light spectrum. He heard me out and just asked a follow up question in optics, one of my favourite subjects among the biophysics material - which means that I didn't have much trouble answering that.
I kept talking, in contrast to last time where he did the talking, and the next topic, Particle Accelerators, went through the same procedure with a follow up question on magnetism.
The last topic was about Phase Border Phenomena and I had trouble remembering the different subjects under that topic which left my paper rather blank.
I tried to explain in a non scientific way and the good thing about this examiner is that he is not impossible in any way, especially since we had such a good discussion up until now.
He guided me through it and dragged some knowledge out of my head and the result ended up in a passing credit which made all the effort during these 2½ weeks worth it all.

Next up was celebrating at the Asian sushi restaurant that just opened up around the corner while simultaneously studying for the next exam in First Aid.
First Aid is another course that sort of just have been there as a side dish not really contributing to the meal, so to speak, which is a shame because I really like rice, or potatoes.
It was time to show of some military paramedic training - well, at least that's what I thought in the beginning of the course.
I thought I'd remembered it all, and also know it all - and I was proven wrong badly.
There are always updates and in this topic, as in everything else, repetition is the key.
I think I could have skipped out on the course by giving the examiners my documents from the Army but now when the exam is over (I passed even if I got the hardcore examiner) I'm rather happy I didn't.

It seems that I haven't been taking any short-cuts lately, and I start to wonder if I will ever be able to do that in the future.
When it comes to biophysics, unfortunately and to my utter surprise, cheating is to something worth considering and what scares me even more is the fact that it is to some also a "level up" in the social group interaction.

Regardless the time spent I can now happily conclude that I made it through the winter semester and that I'm excited to begin the summer semester. It's a true fact that studying anatomy will be a blessing to the brain after the massive texts about heavy atoms, quarks and gamma rays.

And, at last, I'll end this with a nice way to confuse your teacher:
(more nice exam answers at smosh.com)

Biophysics: Day #4 - 6 + First attempt

You how authors sometimes begin their books with the end and then what follows is the story of how the character(s) got there? I'm about to do just that.
If you're just here to find out how I did on the Biophysics all you have to do is finish this sentence (although it is not the end).

I've already taken my first attempt and I did indeed fail it, hence my humble adding of the sentence: "I was naive to think that one and a half week of studies was enough to cover the whole course".
But before I begin to explain how it was being examined let me first tell you about the way there, just as promised.

During Friday there wasn't much going on. I hardly left the apartment and tried to dig through the two last chapters in the booklet.
The pages in what we refer to as "the green booklet" really is horrible to read. Not that it lack the information, the other way around actually which cause it to be difficult reading.
My friend said it in a nice way: "...it's medical orientated physics, not physics orientated for medics..."

As I try to write down what I've been doing it hit me that the days all go blurry and starts to get mixed up in my head which is a sign of too much reading and to little living. The fact that I've sacrificed the workouts is not making me too happy but it's exam period and if that's what it takes then fine.
It's safe to say that I got all the other credits and the only obstacle left is the biophysics.
Saturday went by with at lot of formula memorizing and not too much reading which was sort of a good break from all the reading and sorting of terms.
During Sunday I mostly looked over it all and one minute it honestly felt like I knew enough but then waves of doubt went through my mind.
I scheduled for at least 8 hours of sleep and went to bed rather confident.

I wasn't nervous as I waited to get in for the examination. It started at 9 and I woke up, got ready and dressed up nicely one and a half hour before that. Note that the biophysic-department is in the building right next to my apartment so I didn't
have to stress.
During the exam it's really strange how everything in your head seems to just crawl up and hide.
It's easy to be wise after the event but another week would be good to have and a reschedule would have been the right thing to do.

Taking water over my head is just fine, failing an attempt is also fine - mistakes made are almost always good things, because one can correct them.
There's also rumours roaming around that it's fairly easy to cheat during this type of exam but I honestly rather get put down proven to have a lack of knowledge, do the second attempt better and finish it all of with a solid knowledge.
I discussed this matter the other day and the conclusion was as solid. The hard way is the best way, taking that road down will lead to more knowledge, experience and memories. Even if this philosophy covers life in its whole, not only biophysics, one is still able to apply it.

Now I have to schedule another week and I think that will be just enough in order to learn the booklet from inside out.
Although I'll look like this when I'm done it's going to be worth it.

Knowledge is easy to carry...

Biophysics: Day #3

Today have been a really great day, even if I didn't study that much biophysics I've got a lot of other things done.
Since the Latin test is tomorrow I've mainly studied the Latin vocabulary and the declension table. The grammar patterns are pretty much stuck in my head from the first revision for the first test which saved me a lot of trouble this time.

Biophysics are progressing thou, today I spent some time to repeat yesterday's material covering Thermodynamics and Electrical Phenomena. There's still a lot left but I'm slicing it down into pieces and in that way I can easily see how I progress.
I'll post some nice videos for basic understanding in X-ray and MRI theory and once again, check out Kahn Academy for Thermodynamics and Electricity - he is simply amazing.

The weather today was so nice, almost early spring, and I could leave my jacket at home. I took a stroll up and down the streets next to the apartment in search for a printer. I've been needing one for a long time now and today I felt the urge to get it. That didn't happen, all I ended up with in the end were a new set of colour and sketch pencils, new folders and blank papers.
I know what kind of printer I want to buy, the problem is just to find it without going to the outskirts of Prague where I guess all the shopping malls are located.
That reminds me of the fact that I need to go to both Ikea and to a place that sell vacuum cleaners and washing machines, but I'll deal with that after the exams.

So, videos below, enjoy.

Biophysics: Day #2

The title isn't really correct since yesterday was more about Latin.
The final Latin test is held on Wednesday and if one pass it's automatically going to reward in a credit and with that, the subject is out of the way for this semester.
I got some biophysics done after all, a bit of reading in the morning before my friends came over and as well in the late afternoon before, and after, the gym.
We had a co-revision in my room and I went through the first two declensions and did some exercises from the book.
The rules and the grammar tables are easy to learn and the major problem is to learn the vocabulary. Easy you might think, it's just memorizing, and yes it is indeed although that takes time and as I've been stated numerous times before time is of great value these days.

Today I'll try a different approach on biophysics because I'm honestly keeping myself from freaking out - it's only 6 days left now and it feels like the things I read wont stick to my head at all which is really frustrating.

I'd just like to add, and this is a great deal off topic, that making sushi and listening to Christopher Hitchen's book "God is not Great" is a really nice and relaxing thing to do.
My sushi turned out to be amazing (even though it was vegetarian and 40% of the sushi was missing - aka the salmon) and Hitchens can also amaze me in many different ways and I think that I'll quote him later in my 5 minute break from biophysics. Another great thing that amaze me and inspire me lately is to make Skype-calls to Finland.

For those who think in a scientific way, like myself, and that isn't very familiar with Hitchens, Russell, Sagan and let's put Dawkin's in the name drop as well, should really "googl'em up".
If it turns out that you are, or after googling them become, familiar with them and it happens to be the very case that they do not amuse you in any way and are in fact not sharing your opinions at all then just drop it and leave it be - I'm not about to start any discussion, not just yet that is.

8:30 and it's time to get some revision done before the anatomy lecture.

Biophysics: Day #1

I woke up at 8 and started my studies at 9 while eating breakfast. It get a bit messy sometimes with all the papers, the laptop and the salami slapping the keyboards, but it's worth it since eating and studying is a rather nice combination. Or studying while eating, either way you want to put it.

I began with the part that I'm already familiar with just to get my brain in the right mood:
Phase states, Gibbs Law, Analytical and Colloidal Dispersion Systems, Henry´s Law, Properties of Water, Diffusion, Fick´s laws, Viscosity and Viscous Flow, Stokes Law, Surface tension, Biophysics of Blood Circulation, Laplace Law and last but not least Poiseuille-Hagen Equation.
This is just one chapter out of eight so if I calculated the days correctly I should be able to cover it all properly at least once.

The different sources I use is a review and summary of the exam question which helps a lot. Sorting out information in the course booklet takes time and that is something I do not have enough of.
Youtube is another underrated source of knowledge and especially one guy there called Salman Khan (link: Khan Academy) is doing a fantastic work publishing over thousands of free lectures in different subjects.

I'm happy that the exchange of knowledge between the students here is great. Martin, who already have faced the ordeals of physics and have been teaching it before set up a small gathering and held a lecture on the fundamentals of physics.
It was a great improvisation and it really sorted out a lot of blurry stuff and prepared all of us for the more complicated subjects.

I can also say that since Facebook pretty much tracking everything we do, nothing bad about that, I believe most of you guys visiting my pages already know that I found my self completely lost in a box of 'certain' wonderful feelings during the last month. My head is so far up in the clouds sometimes that I forget time and space. I have a lot to look forward to and by getting reminded of that everyday is sort of a love/hate thing that just build up these amazing feelings.
I could go on like this for hours but it's now 9:31 and I'm one minute late.

Photos below from the study session at Martin's, and for those of you that still wait for the photos from the dinner at Lemon Leaf have to be patient, they will be posted but I believe you can imagine the work that must be done during exam periods.
Enjoy!

Quick note on Biophysics

So, yesterday I finished off the remaining school work before the biophysics boot-camp week.
My exam is scheduled at the 24th and I realized that it will be a bit too soon. There's no good dates to reschedule too so I guess I'll have to give it my best shot.
The worst thing that can happen is that I don't manage to cover it all and fail, which means a rescheduled date for a retake. We have three attempts so it shouldn't be impossible.

So from now on I'll try to prove that it is possible to break down the biophysics course in one week. Note that I have orientated myself in the syllabus during the holiday and that I spent yesterday going over one chapter.
Any hints or sources on the material is appreciated.
And with that said, wish me the best of luck - I'll need it.

The game is on...

Dense Regular Skeletal Connective Muscle?!

Histology is finally over, or at least so I hope - it all depends on how my slide test went.
I feel good about it, but as I recently discovered, feeling good about something is usually a bad thing.
We got two random slides each and was supposed to identify the tissue(s) within the sample as well as label them in a short description.
The first look at my first slide puzzled me. It saw for sure a lot of parallel fibres but also a lot of nuclei. My first thought was dense regular connective tissue from a tendon sample but it still had too many nuclei around the fibres from what I was used to see in this type of sample. So perhaps it's striated muscle? but there was no striation visible what so ever.
I wrote down a quick description and moved on to the next slide which was easier. The description didn't take too long and I could go back to the first slide again.
It really bugs me because I still don't know whether I choose the right answer or not.
Especially these two types can be really hard to distinguish since it looked like an awful mutation between these three pictures:


From left: Skeletal Muscle (1), Dense Regular Conn. Tiss. (2 & 3)

As you can see there's many similarities and it's going to be a long and curious wait for the answers next week.
Below I put up some nice mobile shots from our histology slide practice as well as a photo from today's anatomy lecture.

Today should be a day off, but I doubt that'll be possible since biophysics and Latin exams are just around the corner...

Bitchophysics

I knew that it'd be difficult to study once I'd come back to Sweden but I never thought it'd be this hard.
Biophysics got a new nickname: Bitchophysics.
I usually find it interesting but the massive walls of text hammering my retina every single page I turn in that green booklet of pure madness is driving me insane.
There's a lot of different strategics how to conquer the boredom of reading the booklet and since there's a lot of formulas to memorize I thought I'd might as well start with that.

The fact that I find some of the theory very interesting makes it a bit easier - I know that some people keep saying that the exam will be easy, no one fails etc. - but that's really not what it's all about. I'd rather spend time learning the stuff properly because it is my strongest belief that it will in one way or another help me in the future, even thou it seems totally uncalled for to put the physics in the first year along with anatomy and histology.

In order to manage to get the studies done every day I'm keeping track of the time and make sure that I spend at least two effective hours.

It's funny how I can already miss certain things in Prague after only four months, in a good way of course...

I did well, what a relief

Just came home after a long day, Wednesdays are always busy from 8am until 4pm, and guess what? I did well on the anatomy test.

Our professor divided us into two groups, A and B, and wrote subjects for each group on the black board. The subjects were; scheme of bone blood supply (group A) and scheme of bone ossification and growth (group B). Also, both groups had to do a scheme of the hand.
While we were focused on drawing our schemes our tutor and his assistant went around quizzing us on the bones.
I got the ulna, placed it and told her about its features. When she understood that I knew it she moved on to the humerus, clavicle and finished off with the distinguishing of the carpal bones.
I got an A and went on with my schemes and it wasn't such a big hassle as I'd imagined it to be. Now I know how to study for the test next week.

We handed in the schemes and when I get it back next week I'll post it here for anyone that's interested.

The lesson went on with ligament studies. We took our lab coats on since this was the first time we had seen preserved tissue - which equals chemicals and messy tissue. Each group got a pair of shoulder joints, completely preserved with bone, tissue, ligament and muscle tendons. I'd love to post a descriptive image but since that interfere with ethics I'll Google you something similar instead: how about a link to a shoulder dissection picture?
And yes, before you click, I got to warn sensitive persons.
[Picture 1 - Shoulder Joint] [Picture 2 - Glenohumeral Joint Specified]

The experience of seeing, holding and smelling dissected specimens wasn't as gooey and disgusting as I'd first imagined. Sure the formaldehyde mixture, the preserving fluid, didn't smell like raspberries but I think I'll get used to it. I mean the fish factory back home smell a lot worse.
Having a whole cadaver later on in the dissections with all the tissues intact might be a complete different experience though - but that will have to wait for the time being.

I wish my colleges in the parallel groups good luck for their test tomorrow, hope you'll do great guys!

He who would accomplish little must sacrifice little; he who would accomplish much must sacrifice much...

- James Allen (1855-1942)