Test week

It’s exam week. I had two Monday which I did well on, then I have two Friday, which scare me. They’re monstrous and it’s amazing how much I don’t know at this point. Everyone in my class is feeling the same way though, so this should be interesting. We’re doing the back, arms, chest, legs, pelvis, hips, somatosensory system, motor systems and pathways, and gait patterns…we’ve learned all this in two weeks!!!! I was at school yesterdday from 6:45 am to 9 pm. I took a half hour break for meals, but otherwise I was in class or studying. The night before I had to resort to drawing out the muscles on the extensor side of the forearm. You have somewhere around 25 different muscles in just your forearms, and they all have reallllllllllly similar names. When I was in lab I couldn’t distinguish which was which. After drawing everything out on my own hand last night I was able to get things organized in my head, and then when I went upstairs this morning, everything clicked. It was glorious! Now I just have to figure out all the innervations of the bones in the body, and we will be set.

The great thing about yesterday was that it was very clinical. We had palpation lab this morning, which is where you feel for different structures in the body. The great news is that I now know how to do a sacral release, massage out hiccups and menstrual cramps and tension headaches, and do various neurological tests.

Afterwards we got to check out the clinical exam rooms, because we served as standardized patients for the PA students just getting ready to go out on clinicals. We were supposed to pretend to be someone who had tripped over our dog and fell on our wrist, and it was the PAs job to do a complete history and physical, figure out which bone was broken, check the x-rays, then make the proper splint. I volunteered to go twice and it was interesting seeing the PA students in action. It’s unbelievable what they know from just a year of classes. After they splinted us they brought us down to the faculty, where they had 5 minutes to present our case. It was quite interesting, and it was fun playing a patient too.

And then I studied for 6 straight hours, went home and made lunch and supper for the next day, slept, woke up at 5:30, showered and wolfed down breakfast, and was back in the lab by 6:30.