The past few weeks have brought a lot of new challenges.  Last week we began our last dissection in anatomy – the head and neck region.  We started off by skinning the face and dissecting the eyeball.  I know it sounds gross, but it really wasn’t that bad.  However, the muscles, nerves, and vessels in this region are really complicated, so that hasn’t been very fun to learn.

This week I performed my first male and female genitourinary exams.  This also wasn’t as bad as you might think.  It was, of course, pretty awkward, but we worked in small groups with a physician to help explain everything to us.  More than anything, I felt bad for the patients who volunteered to let us perform the exams on them.  I was just so afraid I was going to hurt them.  I really have no idea why anyone would ever volunteer to let first year medical students practice on them, but I am very grateful for the learning experience.

And today we began manipulation of the neck.  This was pretty scary, considering we are learning techniques very close to the ones Arnold Schwarzenegger uses to kill the bad guys in movies.  It went pretty well overall.  My neck felt great until this evening, and now it is a little sore.  I am really excited to try the techniques again…I just have to wait until Nick trusts that I won’t kill him!

We have a block exam on Monday, so it will be a long weekend with 30+ hours of studying. Then there are just four weeks left until spring break!