Sweating over (Really) Small Stuffs

Today’s the first day of Molecular Biology (BioMol) module, which will run for another 6 weeks. As the name obviously suggests, this module deals with various molecules floating around in the cells, and some outside the cells. Carbs, lipids, proteins, enzymes, the whole nine yards – although “the whole nine nanometers” would be more appropriate.

As usual, the topics will be spread out and explained in  lectures, lab experiments, and group discussions. The lectures will of course cover these biomolecules, along with the application of BioMol in medicine. If today's two lectures were any indication, I can sense sleep deprivation lurking in the near future. Lab experiments are carried out by 3 departments: biology, chemistry, and biochemistry. Considering the departments involved, the field would not be as broad as in the previous module. Fortunately, lack of variation doesn’t kill. Group discussions, well, what can I say? This is the best way to not actually learn anything, and be scored for doing it.

On the paper, the schedule doesn’t look so hectic. I get many short days, mostly ending even before noon. Now, if only I can channel my goodwill and concentration to those free times to study…

Flashbacks of A Module Past

In my little world, I’m the happiest person ever. I managed to survive C&G with all body parts intact and a relatively sane mind. Or at least I think I’m still sane. My mom doubts it. … Anyway, I’m on holiday and I’ve been wasting time like it’s junior high school all over again. Then I remembered this blog and decided to fill you in on what I’ve been doing all these time.

Part #1: Lectures

The C&G module is my first ever proper med school module so most the lectures covered basic biology stuffs like the living cell and all the tiny whatchamacallits inside it. And also the minute thingamajigs inside those whatchamacallits. That alone would explain why there’s no such thing as a User’s Manual for The Human Body: because it would simply be ridiculously thick.

Taking things further, I also learned about cellular injury, i.e. what happens in the cell if it’s damaged, both reversibly and irreversibly. Quick note: this series of lectures is the bane of this module. Apparently, when our cells are damaged, they swell due to many mechanisms the explanation of which would make a baby cry. Then, if the injury’s not resolved, the cell will undergo necrosis or cell death. Even dying is categorized into several types: coagulative, liquefactive, and caseous. Woohoo. Another form of cell death is apoptosis, which is basically a swanky way to describe cell suicide.

By the way, the translation of caseous necrosis intrigued me every time I hear it. “Caseous” is related to cheese or keju in Bahasa Indonesia. Hence, students expected the translation to be “nekrosis perkejuan”, casually translated back as “cheesy necrosis”, no pun intended. However, it turned out to be “nekrosis perkijuan”, which sounded totally alien. I don’t know who came up with this “perkijuan”. Go figure.

Errm…what else? Ah, a close competitor for this module’s worst nightmare is Signal Transduction, which covers how signals like hormones or neurotransmitters are received and processed by the cell to elicit response. I find the processes of transduction like phosphorylation cascade quite interesting, although the magnitude of materials is really a turn off.

Let’s not forget the Genetics part of the module. Mendel is  still our favorite man and we pretty much went back to the basics again. Monohybrids, dihybrids, and whatnots. Hardy-Weinberg was there too. Perhaps the most jawdropping part of Genetics is when we discovered a whole new catalogue of genetic diseases. Believe me, there were oooh’s and aaah’s in the lecture room.

I think that described most, if not all, of my lectures.  TTFN and look forward to the next part. I think I’ll be doing the lab experiments. Booyah!

An Overdue Evaluation

For this post, I’m gonna talk about med school-related nonmedical stuffs. Well, mostly about this blog itself. Before we go anywhere else: if you are somehow curious about my adventures in Cell & Genetics, kindly go to my tumblelog Cerita Dll. It’s mainly written in Bahasa Indonesia, but then again, you don’t have to speak Indonesian to know that there’s a huge pic of atrophic testes. Oh well, let’s get to the main point.

I obviously realize that this blog’s been very dormant; the last time I posted something was around a month ago. That time, I was just starting the Cell & Genetics (C&G) module. Then I went away, just like that. Now, I’m writing again during the holiday after C&G’s wrapped up. Yup, I just have to spew out the cliched reason: med school’s been turning my life upside down and inside out. Spare time is a luxury and sadly I admit that I tend to prioritize other things.

Since a few days ago, I’ve been contemplating about what I’m gonna do with this blog and where I’m going to take it. There are several factors I’m taking into consideration. First, as I’ve mentioned earlier, med school don’t want its students to have enough leisure time. Second, I’ve been having much fun chronicling my med school antics in the previously-mentioned tumblelog. (Go there! Seriously!)  I’m thinking that it’s kinda pointless to write roughly the same thing just in different lingos. Besides, there’s problem number one.

At the end of the day, (well, actually it’s 12.15 AM – the start of the day) I firmly decided to keep this blog going, despite the foreseeable rough adaptation. I also decided to not match the content of this blog to that of my tumblelog. This blog will be less diary-ish and more mad rants-ish. Exhibit A: this post.

OK then. See you soon!

Second Semester is Here

Woohoo! *yeah, really* The short “long holiday” is a thing of the past and now I’m in the beginning of the second semester. We are entering the medical sciences phase, after those shennanigans in the first semester most of which I don’t document here. As an overview, this semester has 3 modules: Cell and Genetics, Molecular Biology, and Neuroscience; each will take about 6 weeks to finish.

You know that I’m extra busy studying and facebooking because I haven’t posted on any of my blogs for quite a long time. There have been several lectures on a broad range of topics with various qualities: some are interesting, the others are so-so, and many are literally sedative. Hiding behind books to catch some Z’s is so passe, I myself witnessed some of my friends fall asleep while sitting upright. Moreover, it wasn’t uncommon to see a classmate dozing off without any “camouflage”. You know, this things are kinda expected when you have to sit through a lecture about a complex fettucini-like colorful molecules –the so-called “proteins”- polymerized into microscopic blobs which are then assembled into a line of similar blobs and then into a tiny tiny tube, made up of those blobs. *What’s that?*

I’ve already been to the lab a few times. The first one was about using microscope like a civilized person; because we are so barbaric, right? After that lab session, microscopes become my best friends in exploring the marvelous world of cells. I’ve had a histology lab session, finding whatever structures which looked totally different from the examples. Just today I did a biology lab session for cell fractination. Nothing special.

Last week was a slap-in-the-face wake-up call for me to mentally graduate from high school. I had found my motivation to wholeheartedly broaden my knowledge. You know what they say, “fear can be the best motivation”…or something like that.

First Semester Finally Over

Yeeehaw! After months and months of hard brain labor, I finally enter the state of serenity, peace, and laziness: HOLIDAY! It's been too long and I don't know what will happen if we keep on going with all those medical stuffs. As happy as I am for this holiday, I still freaked out when they said that it'll be over on January 27, right after Chinese New Year. Hey, that's not fair! The guys in Depok got their breaks much earlier and they won't come back to school until Feb 2.

Anyway, the First Aid module's been half-great, half-blurgh. The lectures were quite interesting and the skills training was great, bar some sessions with annoying tutors. We pounced on a plastic man for CPR, put an unlucky friend in splints, and wrapped each other in arm slings. During the module, we also got the chance to visit the Emergency Room and ICU. There were all sorts of people (and injuries) in the ER, although we didn't see any jaw-dropping, eye-popping patient. The ICU was, well, an ICU. There was a row of beds surrounded by a storeroom full of monitors and devices, with medusa-like cables and lines connected to the patient. The room was depressingly noisy with a variety of beeps and scary warning tones. From then on, I swear I don't wanna be in the ICU as the patient. Seriously.

Like every other module, First Aid had to end with a set of exams. Along with the staple MCQ and Essay exams, I had to go through an OSCE, famously called "ujian teng-teng" for its alarm to notify stressed students that time's up. Here's how my first OSCE went. There were 7 skills station for various stuffs we learned in two weeks, and students were given 5 minutes to finish the task in each station, signaled by the teng-teng. (Well, a buzzer was used instead of a bell, but as a tribute for the good ol' times...let's use teng-teng) I wouldn't say that I messed up my OSCE, but I think I can't get the highest score with my performance. I was horribly nervous, while the examiner doctors didn't help at all. My explanations bordered on rambling, and I suspect that I accidentally skipped some steps. Aaargh, now I can only wait until the score pops out in SIAK-NG.

By the way, I'm quite satisfied with my current scores. I surprisingly trumped Research with an A! I couldn't believe it at first; I was thinking like "what the what....!" and I pressed the Refresh button repeatedly to make sure that my eyes weren't mistaken. When the score finally sank in, I purged my disbelief and literally screamed cries of extreme joy. That's how terrible Research was.

Help Me, I'm an Emergency Case!

The Empathy module was over, and currently, I'm saving myself from drowning in the First Aid module. Compared to the previous two modules (the torturous Research and the tortuous Empathy), it's kinda like the middle ground. It has the "science" of Research and the "excitement" of empathy. We're going to have lots of lectures, but besides that, we also get to do lots of skill trainings.

So far, and by "far" I mean "two days", I've already got lectures on patient assessment and the prioritized things (AVPU responsiveness, ABC, CPR). I've also had lectures on first aid's legal issues, bleeding and shock, trauma injury, burn, eye emergency, and the last one today was pediatric emergency.

The Burns lecture was ultra fun! The lecturer really put all his energy into his presentation, and we had a good time. Another (unfortunately) memorable lecture was the Eye Emergency for the sheer horror of it. Who knew that an eyeball can be that colorful, or big, or popped? (I stop short of describing punctures in the eye for the sake of my own sanity)

For the skills training, we haven't done much. We only did initial patient assessment, ABC, and checking for vital signs. Well, if it's any consolation, we did head-tilt/chin-lift maneuver, jaw thrust, oropharingeal *stuff* and neck collar. Can't wait for the next sessions!!