Right brain oozings from a left brain dominant physician
1st Block Exam week.
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This is what this week has felt like. Three more tests tomorrow. Unfortunately one of them is the anatomy practical, for which I am not prepared as I should be. One way or another tomorrow night will get here though.
I never gave much thought to the root of the term "stroke" but a recent lecture given by a neurologist enlightened me. It stems from the 1500's when "The stroke of God's hand" referred to what we now call just "stroke." I’ll also refer to it as a CVA, short for "CerebroVascular Accident,” in this article. With continued workup of a stroke, we will then diagnosis either a hemorrhage or infarction. Infarction refers to the process which begins when a blockage in blood flow occurs. The tissue that is fed by the blood will die, provided there are no other routes for the blood -- no other corollaries. Sometimes, like in the heart we can have new blood vessels grow over time in response to decreased rate of flow, due to the growing partial blockage. More specifics diagnosis are made based on the what the blockage is made of; we'll get into that, too. At most 18% of strokes are hemorrhagic. A blood vessel, often an artery in the Circle of...
Character workshop Act I #1: The Earthquake and Landslide Date: October 12th, 1492 Place: 30 miles east of present day Portland Oregon, in the Columbia River Gorge at the western edge of the Bonneville Landslide, which was a 30 mile wide swath of land which fell off the side of Table Mountain, which resides on the Washington side of the river, which is the north side. The people who I will have pushing eastward along the Columbia River, leaving their coastal village to meet with the Walla Walla tribe, in order to trade -- but also to show off their young first born son, in hopes of someday having a marriage between their chief's daughter and the most successful trader's son, from the Clatsop tribe who live at the mouth of the Columbia River, where it feeds the Pacific Ocean. It has been proposed that in light of recent carbon dating from a Douglas Fir tree 150 feet under the fill from the Bonneville Slide showing a range of 1550 to 1750, whereas previous estimates h...
Word came down at the end of last week that I passed the 1st of many board exams and that I could officially pass go and collect $200, meaning that I could continue playing doctor at the local county health clinic. It has nearly been 3 full weeks since I took that board exam, and in some ways I still feel a little traumatized by the whole thing -- not so much from the actual 8 hours of answering the questions, but more-so the run up; the anticipation, the fear, the adrenalin, the realization that one specific slice of 8 hours sitting in a testing center has significant implications and influence in what the rest of my life will be. Its not the end-all-be-all by any means, but it is a number (meaning the exam score) that will follow my name for the next 20 months, until the day in early 2016 when I find out what kind of medical residency I match into. And, when I say traumatized, I think it really boils down to not getting any time to grieve the process -- and process my body's ...
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