Monday
Anatomical Techniques 9:00 am-11:00 am
Intro to Disease Mechanisms 2:00 pm-4:00pm
Tuesday
Microscopic Anatomy 9:00 am-10:00 am
Human Anatomy 10:00 am-12:00 pm
Histology Review and Exam 1:00 pm-3:00pm (online class and we meet every 2-3 weeks for exams)
Wednesday
Anatomy Lab (aka. Cadaver Lab) 1:00 pm-5:00 pm
Thursday
Anatomical Techniques 9:00 am-11:00 am
Intro to Disease Mechanisms 2:00 pm-4:00pm
Friday
Human Anatomy 10:00 am-12:00 pm
In addition to these classes, we also take Educational Methodologies, which is a one credit online course. Aside from the 18 course credit hours, we are also required to do one histology rotation, three gross room rotations, and attend weekly pathology conferences throughout the semester. Needless to say, it makes for a busy week and time management is a staple for excelling in this program.
What are my thoughts on each of these classes? It really depends on the day to be honest. There have been times where topics just click and other times, not so much. For an overview, Anatomical Techniques basically covers everything we will be doing in the gross room from proper grossing techniques to safety procedures and dictations. In a nutshell, it's what we will be doing for the rest of our working days. Intro to Disease Mechanisms is a team taught course by three different instructors, which I have come to really like. Each have their own teaching style and it keeps things from getting too monotonous. The material, however, can be quite difficult and it's one of the classes that has required more work on my part.
Human Anatomy is pure recognition and memorization as you would expect, but one difference about any regular anatomy course is that it incorporates pathologic processes about each part of the body we are learning about. For example, in this first section of the upper limb, we discussed carpal tunnel syndrome, how it's caused and the structures involved. An extension of this course is Microanatomy, which is basically a series of guest lectures on what you "see" under a microscope. We have had two lectures so far and they have been on bone marrow, lymph nodes, and the brain. I have little experience in viewing and distinguishing specific tissues and structures microscopically, so this portion of the class has been challenging, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed that my "skills" will develop over time. I was skeptical about the online Histology course at first just because I haven't been exposed to much of this area of study, but it hasn't been as bad as I thought it would be. As with any online course, it just takes dedication to do and learn the material on your own. The Educational Methodologies course, on the other hand, is quite a bit of work, but we have the whole semester to complete the project. This class is designed to teach us how to create and design our own course just in case we are ever put in the position where we would have to do so.
Finally, I've saved the best for last, is cadaver lab. This is by far my favorite course because we are able to work hands on with an actual human body and see what all of the structures look like macroscopically rather than in a textbook. The only part of this course that I hate is standing for four hours and your hands and fingers start to tire and cramp after a while. Other than that, I look forward to Wednesdays every week.
Aside from classes, the pathology conferences up to this point have been way over my head. The residents also attend these conferences and a lot of the material seems to be more directed to them, but with more time in the program, I hope to better understand some of these topics. I haven't had a gross room rotation yet, but I have had my histology rotation. This rotation began bright and early at 5:00 am, talk about the perfect way to start your day. Even though I had to be up at 5:00 am, I was able to learn a lot about the histological aspect of the process from the gross room to the microscope. I was able to see and practice the embedding process, use the microtome, and prepared my own slides to keep.
After conquering the first two weeks of classes and extracurriculars, the third week is filled with five tests. I had my first test today in Histology, but I will wait until I have taken all of my tests to let you know how they are and how they went. I suppose I shall get back to studying for all these tests!
