Just a quick note today, we have finals coming up next week and so far I am still not stressing out about it.  I would like to keep it that way so Ill be back to studying in a bit, but first let me offer a few random thoughts.

To start, an update on anatomy.  We have been through the complete Thorax (rib cage and everything contained within) and moved up towards the neck and the mess of veins, arteries and nerves that run through it (upon further examination it is not actually a "mess", thankfully for us it is all pretty well organized.  see drawing).  

So, having completed the section, today we had our first"walk-about".  

Here's how it works.  There are several dissected bodies set up in a room with a series 

of numbered pins labeling different vessels, muscles, nerves and bones in the body.  Starting at one number, we have 45 seconds to identify the marked feature before moving on to the next.  Organs are removed from the body for separate identification.  It was just a practice, self graded, for self-assessment purposes only so no big deal, we don't have a real test on anatomy until December.  Then it is all or nothing.  No pressure.

After the thorax is the back.  We flipped our cadaver and began to peel back the skin to reveal the musculature beneath.  One great thing about medical school is that everything is so directly interconnected.  As I pulled the skin back and cut away the fat connective tissues I thought about the cells that make up the different tissues and the developmental process that took them from an undifferentiated state (stem cell) and caused them to morph into chondrocytes and secrete matrix to build bone or merge and make myofibrils to become muscle.  And how the regulation of gene expression in each cell coordinated that process somehow.  It amazes me every day.  Life is amazing.

Anyway, tangent, sorry.  But if you are interested in more on what anatomy lab is like, here is an article about cadaver lab at Stanford.  It's not great, but if you are yearning for more . . . here it is).

Another thing that has been apparent to me recently is how quickly science is changing and advancing.  I guess I didn't really think of the consequences when I was doing research; that the results of that research would add to or change what we know, and that it would change what was taught.  In other fields things are more constant.  What was true in history college is, more or less, true today.  What I learned in calculus in high school is still what they are teaching today (I know you history and math buffs will probably challenge me in that).  But what I am learning in Molecular Biology today has changed since I took it 7 years ago.  Yes, the basics are the same.  We still believe that genes are coded into a double stranded double helix, transcribed to RNA and translated to make proteins which basically control what goes on in our bodies.  But how that all happens is still being picked apart.  and some of what we are learning was unknown up until five years ago.  One year ago.  Last month.  And somehow that connection was never so apparent; research findings change textbooks.  (Just another side note, it also seems that most important advances in science were accomplished by Stanford faculty . . . hmm, are they teaching selectively?  I wonder if Harvard kids are only learning what Harvard faculty are working on?  I don't remember that being the case at LC . . .)

Lastly, (me and my "quick note"s, if you believed me you should know better) for those of you that know this about me I thought I might just mention, I haven't slept through a class yet!  I know it is only four weeks in, but I'm optimistic, maybe I am turning over a new leaf.