Medicine at Michigan Student Blogs

We recently finished up our Cardiovascular/Respiratory sequence where we learned about the anatomy, histology, physiology, etc. of the heart and lungs. We also covered some brief pharmacology for the first time this year. While there was a lot of material in this sequence, the professors did a great job of relaying the information and were very entertaining. Following the conclusion of this sequence, we had a week called “Clinical Foundations of Medicine (CFM).” After every two sequences we have one such CFM week in which we focus on the clinical aspects of medicine while integrating our background knowledge and the basic sciences we have previously studied. These weeks are awesome for many reasons:

1)  We get a break from all of the basic sciences, which at times can be dry…

2)  We get to practice our clinical skills that will be used quite frequently once we hit the wards. For me, hands on experiences tend to be way more valuable and enjoyable than lectures or reading.

3)  The week is not very lecture heavy, and most evenings are relatively free, providing a good break from our regular routines. 

During this most recent CFM week, we finally got to break out our new stethoscopes we were given during our white coat ceremony back in August. Once we learned how to use the different features of our stethoscopes, we practiced giving each other cardiac and pulmonary exams during the first half of the week. To finish off the week, actual patients with cardiac or pulmonary conditions volunteered their time to have us examine them. There were numerous patients with ailments ranging from a heart murmur to pulmonary fibrosis. It was a wonderful experience to be able to see, listen, and feel how the conditions that we spend time studying in lectures and readings present in real people. It was also a good reminder of how many of the things we are learning are actually applicable in real scenarios, although we may not realize or think about it in the middle of reading hundreds of pages of notes. Another added benefit of this past CFM week is that now that I know how to correctly use a stethoscope, it is humorous to watch medical TV shows and sometimes see the doctors using them backwards! 

There is a foosball table in our med student lounge and it always serves as a nice break for in-between or after classes. Don’t let our professional attire fool you; the games can get quite intense and you would be surprised at the amount of trash-talk that goes on!

In other news, congratulations to the Michigan Men’s Basketball Team! Earlier this year they upset then #4 ranked UCLA, and yesterday took down current #4 ranked Duke! Hopefully Rich Rod’s football squad can learn some lessons from their basketball counterparts before next season…

Happy holidays to everyone! Talk to you again next year,

Shaun

This entry was posted on Sunday, December 7th, 2008 at 4:24 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.