Histology Final Exam

The last days have held nothing but good weather, hence the long trip with the boat both north and south of the west coast. However, we didn't have to travel far - the very best spots are close to the harbour.

The jet ski have been a steady companion and together with the newly imported GoPro HD camera mountable on pretty much any solid surface I've snapped some rather amazing photos and videos - videos that are to be retouched and edited into a neat film later when the weather is getting worse.
As promised, I will give a recap on my preparation of the final exam from histology.
Straight after anatomy I booked histology in the end of June. However, as I finished anatomy the relief took over and the motivation of studying was completely absent. I took almost a week off, spending time with Kristýna and fixing in the apartment. The fact that Kristýna wouldn’t be done with school until the end of July, due to internships, made me rearrange my plan. One day before the deadline I cancelled the term in June. My plan was that, since I would stay in Prague until August anyway I might take the time to study properly.

Rushing things are never good, but after the event I think it was a bad choice.
As I previously posted, there was quite an unfortunate issue with the sign up system and I did not get a term. I could blame it on the system, but I’d rather be honest and say that it was my bad from the beginning to cancel the first term. However, more students were struck by the lack of slots in the July term and together we managed to open up more slots.
I now spent almost 4 weeks of studying the histology with increasing intensity towards the end. It was very difficult to sit inside studying when the sun was shining, knowing that I could have been done already. Kristýna was a huge support, kicking my ass to study and took me places to rest my head in between.

The histology questions are divided into three categories; cytology, systemic histology and embryology. I finished off the first part during the first half of the second week of repetition. It took me way more time than I had anticipated. My plan was to finish the systemic histology in the next week and leave one week for embryology. I was told that embryology was manageable in one week but since I didn’t really keep up during the lessons it would prove to be a lot tougher. The systemic histology took a bit longer as well, and in the end I had only 5 days for embryology.

Drawings are essential for embryology in order to understand the developmental steps which are rather complex. There are different books to study from and I recommend one that is well illustrated.
The day before the exam was like every other day before an exam, freaking out feeling like a complete idiot with no knowledge stuck in the head whatsoever. My exam was scheduled at Friday and my flight to Sweden the very same day. I knew it would be stressful so I contacted the histology department in order to change it to Thursday. It was a bit of a problem but after much doubt they agreed and let me in to the exam – as the first student. I got Prof. Kucera, a young professor who I had no contact with earlier, since he was not holding any seminars.

The exam is held in two parts, first the oral examination and then a practical microscopical examination from three slide preparations. The oral part contains one question from each chapter, as mentioned earlier; cytology and general histology, systemic histology and embryology. My three questions were:

-          Blood Smear, preparation and interpretation.

-          Islets of Langerhans

-          Development of the Heart

Really nice questions, indeed. However, I had quite a hard time at the exam. I didn’t know the questions as well as I’d hoped.
It was a success after all, and I could finally finish the first year.
Now a lot of preparation must be made for the upcoming second year. But first, vacation.

The Blessings and Curses of SIS

When I first signed in to the SIS - the student information system of the school - I was impressed. The system seemed like an amazing way to keep track of all the bureaucracy regarding the University. This is where students can virtually go to the Professor's offices to claim exam terms, reflect upon courses and keep records of their grades etc.
It all worked well until today where an error was presented. I had but one fear when I entered this university; that failure would be not due to the lack of knowledge but due to the system. I have heard stories from persons where the system brought them into trouble and I believe this is what is going on for the students struck by this issue.

I had just finished Latin with a not so satisfying exam but with an all the more satisfying final grade and I have now only the final exam in Histology left to conquer.
Today was also the official release of the next exam period in the end of this month. 25 slots were increased to 40 and I understood that this will not be enough in comparison to the amount of students that wanted these terms.
Even if being ready minutes to 14:00, the official release time, the 40 slots was gone in a matter of seconds. Signing up for the term is more of a challenge than actually taking the exam.
The SIS-server somehow got overloaded and a lot of students were not equally able to "compete" for the terms, me among them.
This results in a postponing of the exam to early September, which I however do not find as the most disturbing part, but the fact that I will only have two attempts in total is a more unpleasant and unfair issue.
My intention is of course to conquer the credit in one attempt but if worst comes to worst not having as many attempts as other students makes it quite unequal, in my opinion. You might argue that we should have planned it better but I respond that this is just a grain in the heap.

There are too many students taking histology after anatomy, which I do not argue against, after all I planned my exams the same way. The number of students with histology left and the hope to make it in the month of July is too greatly outnumbering the amount of available slots. Given freedom to decide when to have your exams is a great tool - but only if the options are numerous enough. One choice is not freedom of decision - nor is two or three in this matter.
When there is not enough terms to grant every student three attempts, as policy states, there is something that doesn't add up.

Next term is released on the first of August with a capacity of 35 slots. I hope that this number increase because if not, the competition will look the same. And by taking in to account that a good 10-15% of the 40 that recently signed up might fail their attempt decreases the chances to win the "fastest connection get the sign up"-game even further.

I will continue my studies as planned and see what solution will be the best...

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...

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...

The Road

Histology is not the easiest reading in the world, and to be honest I'd rather read ten anatomy pages instead of one in histology. It's not that it is less interesting, it's just difficult reading.
Music makes it better and since I'm currently listening to the official soundtrack of The Road I thought I might as well recommend this amazing, post-apocalyptic movie by John Hillcoat for you.

Listen to the soundtrack above and read about the movie here

Scanning Electron Micrographic Wallpapers!

 I found these neat scanning electron micro-graphs and decided to turn them into wallpapers...

A breif history of butterflies and hurricanes

I was asked to publish more photos from my portfolio, this is a really old one from a series of photos shot in my parents garden - if there's someone out there good at species - then please let me know the name of this little guy.

I wanted to write a recap of New Year's Eve... not going to happen.
I wanted to write a recap of Christmas and the holiday... not going to happen.
I wanted to write a recap of my lecture for the students at my old High School... not even that, is going to happen.

All sadly due to the lack of time and energy.
You see, lately I've been occupied by winged creatures and hopefully, in a short matter of time, me myself will grow wings.
Now, unfortunately that's just wishful thinking and neither will I have more time on my hands nor will wings start to grow out of my back... It will, simply... just not happen.

This looks like a disturbingly depressing beginning and I can gladly tell you that's not the case - the other way around - actually a lot have happened, a lot of good things.
I can honestly reveal that a normal and sane person would probably be stressed over the situation regarding the studies; the pile is just growing but therefore not said the pace is decreasing, hence the reason to be stressed... and that's why it is great that I'm not sane at the moment.

While trying to stay insane, since that (briefly proved by my speculations above) obviously helps, I'm digging through that growing pile of work.
I just passed the final Czech test with a mark B which sort of boosted my insanity and what's left to conquer are the final anatomy and histology tests for this semester.
Anatomy is shouting "finale!" while throwing a slide test and a scheme drawing right in our faces - covering random parts of the Gastro-Intestinal System which some students rate as the toughest part so far in the anatomy studies.
Basically it consists of muscles, gross- and micro anatomy of the internal organs such as; the liver, gall bladder, pancreas, intestines (large/small) and other specific compartments not worth mentioning since my eyes and brain are starting to shut down this very second.
My plan is to go through the whole system, organ by organ and put it all together in the end applying that knowledge to as many different atlases as possible in one week.

Simultaneously histology did the feared jumped from level 1 to level 4, or rather; like playing Pac-Man with 4 times the normal amount of monsters.
Next test is the first real slide test on the samples of all the tissues we've been through so far, approximately 25 samples.
It's going to be the biggest challenge next week and preparing for it is going to result in a lot of coffee, and less time for very inspirational things such as hitting the Facebook update button 6 times per minute.
By now I can feel my own sarcasm slapping my tired face like bricks of concrete to a Shaolin Munk's head , and I apologize for that - I'm writing on pure will power now - but I guess no one dares to blame me since I've been studying since 17:oo straight.

In two weeks the last checkpoint will be reached; the final Latin test. I have high hopes for that test since Latin, or more correctly Medical Terminology, is very interesting and I'm very much admiring our great teacher.

I would like to write a novel right now but I think this will do for tonight. Now I'll enjoy the butterflies and hurricanes and with that said I'll close my eyes... take a deep breath... and... slowly... fall... asleep... dreaming about... butterfl...z..z...Z

Test number 4 and 2

Just came home from the histology seminar with half a smile, half a grin.
The histology test covering tissues (except nervous tissue) turned out to be a good one, I was rather lucky with the questions that suited me just fine and I hardly believe that I'm going to fail.
Dr. Becke usually gives the answers to the test questions once the test is handed in which I find a both a bit disturbing as well as a relief - guess I'm a bit 'split minded' today.
Of course it makes you know if you're way off and have to restudy the whole chapter but it can also give a certain relief because you can pretty much tell if you passed or not.
To me it only inflicted anxiety, especially since I found out that I wasn't far from a top result but that I made those stupid mistakes that stopped me from reaching it.
I believe that when you set high aims and the lack of knowledge lets you down it's fine - then it means you didn't study enough and you probably should lower your bar. On the other hand, finding out that small mistakes, not related to lack of knowledge but rather the disorientation of the knowledge, makes me so irritated.
Call it a small problem, vanity or whatever you'll find fitting, I know passing is what matters for now.



The anatomy test yesterday on the axial skeleton and its ligaments was our second slide test and I must admit that I was shit scared of what might pop up on the slides. There's no way you can know what pictures are going to be in the test, all you can do is to prepare as well as you can, studying the material from different atlases and whatever pictures you can find on the internet.
X-ray photos and CT-scans might show up as well and those are the trickiest ones. I think you can imagine that distinguishing processes and tubercles from one another in different opacities of shadow gray are rather difficult and the only way to get better at it is to study them thoroughly.

This test also turned out rather good and afterwards I felt satisfied with my answers. We got the result back from the last tests cross section and since I know I left out some details the result was to my surprise very good.

Studying is exhausting and I try to put sleep as a top priority - and you should know that sleep is a luxury article around here - and the fact that I've been able to plan my studies so that they won't conflict with it makes me happy (and thoroughly rested of course).
The study schedule is like a roller coaster stretching over one or two weeks. In the middle of the week the introduction gives me a hint of what to study. Then I settle down and start reading on my own, alternating subjects if I have more than one test. In the end of the weekend I tend to increase the study pace and I finish off with a good night sleep right before the test. After the test there's finally some resting before hitting the next wall forcing you to increase the pace once again.


Studying histology while Nina and Jeanine are going over the back muscles, books all over the place...

Next week is 'language week' with tests in both Latin and Czech and simultaneously I have to learn the basics of the skull as well as keep the histology studies up - although I can do this in my own pace it still means that I'm in for yet another rather hectic weekend...

Getting back into Routine

After a couple of days off, recharging my batteries just enjoying Prague with my parents, it was finally time to dig in again.
Next week is yet another busy one with two major tests in anatomy and histology.
Anatomy covers the spine and its ligaments as well as the abdomen and simultaneously we have lectures about the cranium which seems to be one of the heaviest subjects so far, apart from muscles that is.
Histology continues as scheduled with tissues of the body such as; connective tissue, cartilage, bone and muscle tissue.
This is the first big histology test and since anatomy have required so much time lately I think it’s of the essence to really sort the histo out and that’s why I pretty much have lived between the pages of my Gartner/Hiatt-book the last two days.
Regardless of the massive amount of text I have to live through, and even if it’s still just ‘simple’ tissues, I find the histology very interesting. The basic knowledge in cytology I acquired during the military and PreMed is a good base to lean back on and it is interesting to see how that knowledge gets more and fine tuned and detailed for every other page I turn.

Anatomy is rather ‘easy’ now compared to the muscle part and going back to learning bones feels rather awkward even if it’s necessary for the chapter. The spine is such a beautiful component and it’s truly amazing to see how the complex the structures are in order to promote motion that we take for granted.
It’s also interesting to see how evolution and the environmental parameters shape the organism and how it might evolve, or rather degenerate, in the future – mainly thinking about the coccyx.

I’ve been drawing a lot, complementary drawings to the one’s I recently posted, but I’ll publish them after the test on Wednesday.
Although I’m starting to wonder if I spend too much time on my drawings I very much appreciate the fact that by the time the drawing is finished I know the fragments by heart.
If you asks me to draw the sacrum or whatever part I’ve been drawing I pretty much know how to do it, quick version that is.
Another positive thing is that it’s really relaxing and stimulating, not as reading which I of course find necessary but oh so boring. I believe that using all parts of brain during learning is the way to go.

Today I went on a shopping spree to get my mind off the books and came home with a new set of clothes.
After an hour of effective shopping I sat down on a bench in the avenue to read some anatomy but hunger forced me to go home and cook. I showed my new findings to my fashion expert Jeanine – she liked it but got disappointed that I didn’t bring her along (of course we still have to go).
It’s sort of funny how the book always are next to me; while cooking and eating and I even found myself bringing it with me to the bathroom. Call it madness if you’d like.



Jeanine and Thomas were preparing to go to the famous library and I thought that I might as well tag along to see what it’s like.
No luck there - I didn’t even get in because you had to register and I didn’t bring my passport (obviously my EU-registered driving license wasn’t good enough) - so I just went back home again.

Later I met up with Mathilde for some histology revision which helped me a lot, she really knows the stuff and take awesome notes. Apparently her teacher is a lot more detailed than mine but what would you expect from the head of Histology? There’s always pros and cons thou, pros and cons…

Oh, now I’ve been writing way too much and I’m glad if I was able to keep you reading for this long.

Stay tuned and remember to smile,
until next update - have a good one…

Sneaking into Dissections

Histology was cancelled yesterday due to the Czech holiday celebration but our fantastic histology professor MUDr. Becker booked us a complementary lecture today to make up for it.
We went through the connective tissues and were introduced to a couple of new tissue specimen slides which was good, even thou we couldn't examine them ourselves due to the lack of microscopes in the temporary room.

The test our group's having next week is going to cover the basic techniques of histology, histochemistry as well as epithelial tissues. The facts about epithelial tissue is not a lot deeper than of the knowledge I enquired at the PreMed but I'm still going to expect a hard test.
The good thing about Becker is that he seems very straight forward and gives us clear directions of what to study. It kind of reminds me of some of the tutors at the medical centre of the military, which I really like.

After the lecture me and two of my colleagues and friends, Solveig and Basu, ended up at the benches next to the steep stairs behind the Institute of Pathology (the stairs are supposed to be a "short-cut" to the upper campus but honestly they're just leg killers, especially with a bag full of books).
We sat down in the lovely autumn weather to revise some anatomy.
I've been breaking down the anatomy of the muscles pretty good by now and are halfway through the superior limb.
In the end thou, this is what we've to know, and a bit more to it:

You get a mentally exhausted just by looking at this atlas page but don't worry mates, there's more pages explaining it all in detail.

I've been practising some muscle insertion by drawing them all over the bones. Drawing is a lot of fun, haven't done that since high school, and I find first studying the atlas thoroughly and then label the parts while drawing to be a very good way of learning.

My friend and colleague Dimitris from my group had a really nice booklet from his previous education back in Boston. It's summarizing the muscles and it's different fact in a very good way but since I don't have the booklet myself I thought that I'd still use the idea and started working on this table:

It's a good way to quickly practising the different muscles and there origin, insertion, function and innervation.
I have to finish it by tomorrow because tomorrow we're going to have a study session where we'll test each others knowledge.

Due to the fact that we have a lot of things to do until next week I might skip the Halloween celebration completely. It's such a hassle getting a proper costume and I bet I'll just feel like it's a waste of revising time, after all, scoring high on the test is more important at the moment - at least that's how I feel.

So back to the original story about sneaking into dissections.
After our short study break by the stairs we went down to the anatomy building because we had been informed that open dissections would be held between 1 and 3 pm. Open dissection basically means that you can go to the dissection rooms and study the specimens by yourself.
So, we went to the locker room and changed into lab coats and slippers and went in to the big dissection room. It was all empty, but we didn't think about that since we were just eager to start. We began to uncover the plastic covering the limbs, found a good sample and began orientating ourselves - labelling muscles, nerves and tendons.
Two persons, obviously responsible for the dissections, were running around with a trolley, collecting specimens but we didn't mind them, all of us focused on our practising. All of a sudden they swished by with the trolley and picked up our specimen. They said that they were closing down which surprised us since the clock wasn't 3 pm yet.
We had to pick up our things and leave and then we realised that we were there the wrong time. Obviously there was some kind of misunderstanding - we didn't mind that, we got to practice for forty minutes, and neither did the persons working there - win win situation.

Next week we'll be on time thou, even if it means that it's going to be crowded with students - you don't want to miss an opportunity to practice outside the books on the real thing.

Now I'll have to hit the gym, "gotta stay FTD"...

Next phase

We pretty much entered the next phase of the semester today - and the anxiety that followed was the proof.

The anatomy test went down rather quickly, approx. 35 power point slides with pictures covering ligaments and joint compartments of the superior and inferior extremities. To twist it up a bit our teacher added the regular scheme drawing of either a cross-section of the knee or the hip joint, depending on the group you were placed in.
I got the hip-joint which I knew fairly well and made a quick scheme. I would have preferred the knee joint thou since it was my lecture presentation subject and would probably have nailed it.
After the test I felt pretty good about myself until my friend Paymon started to discuss the questions with me. Then I felt the complete opposite (you know how it usually goes after a test).
I know I missed some bits and pieces here and there and I just hope I'll still get an acceptable grade.

After the test we went on to the dissection rooms and got our first view of a bigger piece of the real thing. The room smelled a bit of formalin, the chemical used to preserve the tissues, but when the sheets covering the limbs were removed the odour just got stronger. Since this wasn't the first time encountering the smell, my obviously very selective nose pretty much overlooked the smell and I could focus at the introduction of the muscles of the superior limb.
Since I can't post any photos of our procedure I'll just randomly link to something similar and let someone else get the blame.

(!)Gore alert(!) on the following google links:
Photo of shoulder girdle dissection #1, joint capsule
Photo of shoulder girdle dissection #2, muscles and innervation
Photo of inferior limb and abdomen dissection

The statement of the day is that the muscles (name, innervation, insertion and function) are rather complex anatomies to conquer. They are all shown pretty good in this overview.
The forearm contains loads and once again loads of parts mentioned in brackets above. For every muscle we need to know these different parameters as wells as being able to label them in a dissected arm.
My plan is to once again, break it down to bits and pieces, study different atlases, then sketch and repeat.
A good thing is that the dissection rooms are going to be open for self studies during the weeks so we'll get a chance to repeat on the specimens.

The next week is going to be hectic and I have to increase my time studying. I got two weeks to learn the muscles of both the superior and inferior limb, a histology test covering the histological techniques, staining and both epithelial and connective tissue as well as biophysics labs and lectures that I still keep procrastinating.
I'm growing the fear that I'll all pile up in the end and I'd like to prevent that by being one step ahead. It's damn hard thou due to the high pace, hence the worries, the increase in studying and the increase in coffee drinking.

Tomorrow is a day off since there's a holiday going on in Czech Republic and since I'm always off on Fridays my weekend begins tonight. Nabeel, a really nice guy from third year, asked my roomies out for a beer and I took some time off to tag along. So did Fredrik and Christian and we had a nice chat over a beer and a XXL drink in a crowded, smoky, basement pub called the Black Sheep.
It was a great start of the weekend, and since Halloween is around the corner it's just going to be better.
To smash that party mood up I'll still have to study a lot, so tomorrow is dedicated for studying and a major workout.

Until next post, have a good one - oh yeah got to end it with another fancy quote - this time in Latin I think (since I got pretty good hang of the Latin grammar today...)

"Aequam memento rebus in arduis servare mentem" - Horace

Histology lessons ftw!

Histology lessons with our Histology professor are so much fun. Not just because of the fact that Histology is an awesome subject by itself but rather because our professor is one of the funniest and best teachers at the university.
Today he described the staining and marking methods of antibodies to find specific cells in this way (shortened down to readable length - also, try to imagine this guy making real sound effects and gestures while talking):
"We put growing rabbit with growth hormone on a table an take out the hormone. Then we take a sheep, inject the rabbit hormone into the blood and the sheep goes 'waaaaah what is this?!'.
The sheep produce antibodies against the rabbit and so we take this antibodies from the sheep.
Now we say: go away stupid sheep I don't need you anymore. But no, we only have 0,1ml antibodies! We must have more, remember?
So we take this cow, with the horns you know, no wait... We take an elephant! We inject the sheep antibodies against the rabbit hormone in the elephant and he goes 'waaaaaaaah!' and now we get much antibodies. Now we can take the rabbit, kill it, cut it up and slice the puititory gland, put in the elephant and sheep antobodies and now we see which cells that produce the growth hormone..."

Awesome 15 minute explaining, I bet it was a lot more fun IRL, I laughed hard and learnt a lot! :D

The weeks just get better and better...

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Anatomy Test number 1

Should do some revision but to be honest I don’t feel like doing it. Just came home from Paymon’s place where we’ve been revising for a good hour and a half which feels great.

I hope, and believe, that we’ll be able to nail the test tomorrow since we’ve been revising so much and it feels like I know things thoroughly.
The first anatomy test basically covers the upper extremity divided into the hand, the forearm, the upper arm and the shoulder girdle. We have to know the names of the bones, the different parts of the bones as well as the joints. Furthermore we also need to know about the general anatomy of the bone and joint, such as how the bone develops, what it consists of and how the joints work.

The general anatomy of the bone is rather complex, these names won’t mean much to you but I’ll still namedrop the different subcategories.
Microanatomy of bone; bone classification, bone structure, bone tissue (osteocytes/clasts/blasts, chondrocytes), growth of bone (ossification and osteogenesis) nutrition of the bone, body planes, axis and medical orientation in 3D space as well as basic muscle, tendon and nerve attachment knowledge. It looks like a lot for one and a half week but once you grind it down into smaller parts it’s doable.
All together I’d estimate it to about a hundred terms, or even more – after all we’ll cover 64 bones out of the 208 in the human body.

Even if anatomy takes up a lot of my time right now I can’t forget about the other subjects; histology, biophysics and of course we have Czech. The Czech classes are really funny yet tough – Czech is a difficult language. Today we learned the numbers, yay(!)

Tomorrow night, after the test, I’ll mainly focus on histology, the other big subject during the first semester. It’s probably also the most interesting one – I’m like a little kid again while looking through the microscope, as if I explored my back yard garden. There’re so many things to see and discover in the microscope that you’ve only seen in the book. Of course anatomy is interesting, especially when it comes to physiology, but namedropping is rather monotonously.

Now I’m off to relax my head with some Call of Duty: MW2 and an episode of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia.


I hope it goes well tomorrow, wish me luck...

Geared up for practice

A new week - new knowledge to take in. Still without books in the major subjects; anatomy, histology/cytology and biophysics, I went to the bookshop to gear up. Believe me when I say it; it’s pretty hard to chose what books to buy. Each subject has at least three represented books, atlases or practice booklets and every person – students, teachers and the personal in the book store – recommend different books. After trying to listen to them all to see which one seemed to be the most popular one I pretty much shut my ears off and just went with the one that I liked the most picture- and text-wise.
It’s rather expensive too, even if the currency brings down the price just a bit and each book isn’t worth a fortune individually it still sums up to a rather big expense, and this is just for the first semester.

It’s amazing how fast the books went out of stock at the book stores. I mean c’mon, didn’t you plan for a new autumn semester with one of the greatest number of freshers’ so far? (btw, that was just an assumption)

At least I feel pretty good about my equipment, especially since I bought my lab coat, forceps and scalpel just the other day...

Structure through chaos

Today we schooled in for the winter semester.
The truth is that I kind of longed for this day for quite some time now. I was curious to see how the tutors were like and, since we haven’t met them all yet, still are. I began the day with anatomy and was looking forward to have a lesson with Dr. Snajdr, a teacher that already introduced himself at the day of introduction. To my surprise, as well as disappointment, another tutor entered the practice room and introduced himself in rather poor English. My guess is that he is a teacher from the Czech branch of our Faculty and is about to have his first international group of students. Good thing anatomy mostly consists of Latin and Greece and is rather easy to understand as well as study on your own.

By his side stood a younger girl, I guess she’s in the last year or so, and she introduced herself in fluent English which kind of balanced my approach to the whole situation.

Later on they both, regardless the poor English which I got used to really quickly, proved their selves to be great teachers!
The lesson was very well structured and I found the time well worth spent and the whole situation just made me really happy.
At first we went through different axis of the body in order to be able to locate and distinguish different parts. Our first parts of the body to get to know were the parts of the upper limb; upper arm, forearm and shoulders. The teacher and his assistant went brought in a big box filled of bones – authentic bones that is. It was a strange feeling to have five different bones obviously from five different individuals – strange but exciting.

I never thought that one single bone could have so many different parts. Just the five bones in the upper limb (the lower is added next week) contains of approximately 50 parts with different names. I need to force them all into my head over the next week – there’s a test on the next Friday continuing as a weekly routine; almost one test every two weeks. I believe that it’s pretty good to have them; I prefer to have something that triggers one to study rather than to sit with it all right before the final exam.
There will be many late evenings under the feeble reading light and a great many visits at the Anatomy study room (aka. “The Graveyard”) where one can borrow bones to practice at.

The day went on with both Histology and Cytology lectures as well as Biophysics lectures, both of them rather long and boring. Tonight I’ve been going over the upper bones of the limb, trying to sort out all the nomenclature and terminology.

It is tough – but far from impossible...