At the medical school I attend, we are limited to the number of weeks we can spend in each discipline of medicine during our fourth year electives. That magic number is 12 weeks...so, since I have spent 2 weeks in oncology, 4 weeks on internal, and I will spend another 4 weeks in oncology, I've been limited on what I can do. This is such a shame, because internal medicine covers a huge variety of subspecialties which I wanted to become more familiar with prior to residency - like MICU service, cardiology, nephrology, pulm, rheumatology, and oncology. But instead, I will get to see more areas of medicine before my life becomes solely internal medicine - which is nice, in a way, to give more of a well-rounded education. It's not so nice to have to find something that will spark your interest enough to make the time and effort worthwhile.
This brings me to how I ended up on a pathology rotation. Bearing in mind my ultimate desire lies in medical oncology, I decided to do an elective on a rotation which will be helpful in my future career. Pathology is definitely a specialty which I will use! So, what the heck, I signed up and here I am.
First day was spent completing an autopsy. I almost forgot how much I hated dead bodies, being that my time with my cadaver, "Hans", was three years ago. It's just so...morbid. Not my thing. And then to cut and search for a cause of death - not exactly my idea of fun. The smell, the flies and gnats flying about, the bone saw, the knives - it is just so not for me. I did get to cut through the bronchioles and breadloaf-slice a lung, so that was actually kind of cool. As for a cause of death? Still pending...
Second day began by investigating brain specimen (dissecting brains at 8am, what a way to start the day). The rest of the morning was spent in the Immunology Lab. It was really cool to see how the tests are run and what different things look like under the microscope (so that's what speckled ANA looks like!). It's also nice to see such knowledgeable staff and lab technicians who are seriously passionate about their job. It takes a team to care for a patient, that's for sure. Then I looked at a bunch of slides of uterus and cervix and ovary as well as a few skin biopsies and GI biopsies. Its very rewarding to see the diagnosis on a cellular level and to correlate it with the patient's clinical history. In the future, I think I will be more inclined to visit with the pathologists regarding particular cases when I have questions or think its an interesting case.
Today, I attended a few lectures, watched the phlebotomists draw blood from a bunch of patients (I volunteered to take a few, but was pretty quickly denied - disappointing, because I enjoy doing it and I'd like to continue to improve my technique and experience). Then I peered under the microscope for a few hours, looking at some skin biopsies and GI histology among others.
I'm enjoying this experience, but I do hope that the number of autopsies are kept to a minimum! yuck.
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