Once it was pulled far back enough, we stood in awe at the inside of Penny's body. We were witnessing a part of her that no human on this planet had ever seen before. We were seeing a part of her that not even she had seen herself. Two big masses on either side completely covered the gem underneath, the lungs provided a cushion with the texture of a sponge. For a second, we were confused though - where was her heart? With help from a 4th-year medical student, we moved back the lungs and froze - for a second, none of us moved, our breaths stuck, our eyes fixated at that beautiful, colorful, surprisingly large organ we had been anxious to find. This incredible lifeless organ had vivaciously pumped repeatedly every second of every day of every year that Penny had lived. In fact, ours are pumping this very second and yet we will never see them in action within ourselves, but Penny allowed us to peer within her body and hold her heart within our hands. A truly beautiful dissection.
Once we cut the heart out of the body, I felt like a mother holding her newborn child. I was cradling it, staring lovingly into its angelic recesses, feeling a sense of astonishment and wonderment at this incredible creation. Looking around, we soon realized that each group had become very possessive of their cadaver's hearts. You couldn't hold any heart for more than a few seconds before someone came to reclaim their property. That was the newborn-phase, the this-heart-can-do-no-wrong phase. I will love it forever phase. Little did we know how our relationship was about to change....
Low: Physiology of the Heart (as was taught/presented to us). Valentine's Day was this past Monday and it just so happened to be our Cardiac Electrophysiology exam. I'm sure the Course Directors planned that - heart exam on v-day. But as important a subject as Cardiology is, I just wish it was presented to us in a better way. I usually never complain about medical school related-anything, because this is what I signed up for. Everything I'm learning now is going to be relevant to my future career in one way or another - and I love learning about all (read: most) of it. But I was absolutely disappointed by the heart physiology unit. It is a difficult subject as is, is a lot more concept-heavy than detail-oriented. My strong-suit has always been memorization of facts, details, clinical scenarios, so this was hands down, the most difficult unit for me thus far and my grade on the exam reflected that. Nonetheless, advice to future medical students: take the Cardiology block seriously, study hard no matter who teaches it, figure out how best to understand coneptual ideas and make sure to get it down -this is important stuff bound to show up again and again not only in your medical school career and BOARDS but in your profession as well.
Example of the confusion that was Cardio:
Yeah, I don't exactly know what this is - but our class material from cardio unit is copyrighted so I can't post that here - so I googled stuff and came up with his fairly scary-looking graph. I see this and my brain shuts down - which is pretty much what happened throughout the entire cardio unit. It's okay though - I still love that beautiful pumping machine- sometimes it's hard to love it, but I can't turn my back on it now - no matter how much it breaks my heart.
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