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“A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort.”
~ Herm Albright

inching along over here. Brandon and i are working hard to keep the other person smiling. we talk a lot about plans over the Christmas break and i think part of my brain wants to start enjoying it now because i know once we’re in the middle of it, the days will fly by quickly to January 5th and the start of MED 5.

but enough day-dreaming. here’s a concise list of the stuff we studied in block 4.

pathology
- congenital & acquired diseases of bone
- fractures
- osteonecrosis
- osteomyelitis
- bone tumors
- arthritis
- joint tumors and tumor-like lesions
- muscle atrophy
- muscular dystrophy
- myopathy
- diseases of neuromuscular junction
- skeletal muscle tumors
- fatty tumors
- fibrohistiocytic tumors
- smooth muscle tumors
- synovial sarcoma
- acute & chronic inflammatory dermatoses
- infectious dermatoses
- blistering (bullous) dermatoses
- skin tumors
- cerebrovascular diseases
- CNS trauma
- congenital malformations and perinatal brain injury
- infections of nervous system
- tumors of nervous system
- diseases of myelin
- acquired metabolic and toxic disturbances of nervous system
- degenerative diseases and dementias
- diseases of the PNS
- familial tumor syndromes

>> most interesting thing learned: we studied central nervous system trauma again this block which was a bit of a review from neuro last semester. i still really really love the brain. and i love how you can diagnose a lesion pretty much anywhere in the brain or spinal cord (or peripheral nerves) based on external symptoms alone. for example, if you have a stroke (a loss of blood supply to a certain part of your brain) in the front area, one of the things you will have a hard time doing is making decisions or having the desire to do anything (abulia). if the same stroke happens in the middle of your brain, you will lose the ability to speak or understand words (aphasia) and if it happens in the back of your brain you will lose the ability to read (alexia). it’s easy to see how strokes that affect an entire hemisphere can be particularly devastating.

pharmacology
- inhibitors of bacterial cell wall synthesis
- inhibitors of bacterial protein synthesis
- antifolate drugs
- fluoroquinolones & urinary tract antiseptics
- antimycobacterials
- antifungals
- antivirals
- immunosuppressants
- cancer chemotherapy

>> most interesting thing learned: i am so very thankful i haven’t had anyone close to me have to deal with the convoluted regimen of cancer chemotherapy. it seems that just as many drugs are given to relieve or prevent the side effects (nausea, vomiting, etc) than to actually shrink or kill the tumor. i do know someone that is on the rather stressful treatment for hepatitis C and don’t envy the colourful rainbow of hematologic toxicity, cardiac arrhythmias, changes in blood pressure, gastrointestinal distress, chills, fatigue, headache, myalgia (muscle pain), and severe neurological changes such as depression and hallucinations and schizophrenic-like symptoms that they have to deal with for the duration of the 12-month treatment.

physical diagnosis
- musculoskeletal
- neurological

>> most interesting thing learned: we spent most of this block with Dean T and his presentation of local patient cases. it was wonderful to have the Nevis patients visit our classroom and answer all of our questions. learning material directly from patients (on rounds in the hospital, during house calls, etc) is *so* much different than reading and regurgitating form a textbook. i am excited to get out of the classroom permanently and into the hospital hallways.

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