Cranial Nerves - who knew 12 little nerves could be so complicated?

Instead of actually studying them, I decided I'd blog about the cranial nerves instead :) These twelve small nerves apparently give medical students the biggest headaches. At first I did not understand why, I mean memorizing 12 nerves seemed trivial compared to the 50 fossa, foramen, fissures, processes, bones, etc. we need to know for the skull. Yet, I'm now starting to realize how much cranial nerves really do suck. We have to know where they course, what fibers they carry, where they synapse, and what they innervate. Oh and of course multiple of the cranial nerves have branches for which we have to know all about as well. I'm starting the memorization process right now for our exam next Wednesday. Luckily, wikipedia has lists of mnemonics for how to remember a lot of the aspects of the cranial nerves (mostly sexual references of course..)  But as much as I'm complaining I really do find them pretty awesome! To think of how quickly they work and how much these little nerves can do! It's crazy!! Maybe neurosurgery is in my future... ha..

On another note, we had a 'health and wellness' session yesterday, where they pretty much made sure we weren't becoming depressed (apparently 30% of medical students do..) I was dreading it, but it turned out to be helpful. People opened up about their study habits, stress levels, etc. We talked about how taking study breaks is not a bad thing! (shocking I know!) One girl in my class said she takes from Saturday at noon - Sunday at noon off EVERY SINGLE WEEK (people gasped...acutally..) - but guess what - she's not failing out! I'm starting to realize that I can study plenty but still have time for myself, friends and family. After this session I've decided that I'm actually going to go professional clothes shopping tomorrow and take time to see Tommy and his family this weekend when they visit Hope! Big week ahead, I know!

Don't worry, Shaniqua's still studying hard

A post of how to make cinnamon apple scones will be up tomorrow! Stay tuned..

Is this really helping me become a physician?

I have asked myself this question multiple times during the past month. Sometimes when medical school is feeding me information by the shovel-full (YES shovel, not spoon) I wonder how it actually applies clinically. Anatomy is the only class that I sincerely love and I think it is because I can see directly how it applies to my future career. But outside of anatomy, we are being bogged down with details of biochemistry, bone formation and resorption, and red blood cell metabolism. I found it really difficult to study for the physiology exam I just took mostly due to the fact that I do not care about how bone is made or how red blood cells are metabolized in the body. I don't see how I will ever use this material as a clinician.
Luckily, Michigan State tries to show us clinical correlations with this basic science material. We learn about clinical cases and many of the questions on the exams force us to use the basic science knowledge to dissect and solve these cases. Another interesting thing that Michigan State has us do is attend "Integrative Clinical Correlation" sessions about every other week. Usually a patient is brought in and we learn about their diagnosis. Then, one of our basic science lecturers explains how the diagnosis relates to the material we have been learning. This past week we heard from a patient with Acute Intermittent Porphyria. This scrubs clip sums the disease up pretty well:

Ok, well it's a little more than just 'purple pee' but basically it is a deficiency in the heme biosynthesis pathway (Heme is a part of hemoglobin which delivers oxygen to your tissues..). ** Here's the wiki link that explains it pretty well in case you're actually interested:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acute_intermittent_porphyria

This deficiency can cause severe abdominal pain as well as neurological defects. Hearing about this disease from the patient herself made learning about heme biosynthesis a little more interesting :) Hopefully these sessions continue to be helpful and make the 'shovel-full' amounts of information a little bit easier to handle.