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October 6, 2005
Studying
Oh, my head.
Gross Anatomy tests are written and practical. That means part of the test is walking around to the cadavers and identifying muscles, nerves, veins, bones, etc, that have pins stuck in them. A little index card next to the body will have something like "Name the nerve that innervates the pinned muscle". So if the biceps is pinned, the correct answer would be the musculocutaneous nerve. Most schools (I can speak from experience on this one now!) hold practice practicals before the real practical exams, so the students have some sense of what might actually be pinned, and what those pins look like, how the cadavers are presented, that sort of thing. Oh, and it's timed. I think one minute per structure is standard. So we took our practice practical after our second lecture back from the "holiday".
Ouch.
Now we're all studying like mad. Groups are forming and dissolving, people were in lab yesterday until 2 am. God only knows how the test is going to go. I'm feeling pretty stupid right now, though. Gotta go.
Posted by Niels Olson at October 6, 2005 11:10 PM
Comments
I feel your pain! (just don't ask me via what nerve...LOL)
We had a practice practial as well to rehearse the logistics of the test: 1 minute per structure, as you said. Except there could be no evidence of having changed your answer, since you could "cheat" and peek at a structure over a period of 5 minutes or so with adjacent stations thinking about it more, and/or seeing someone else's answer. Kinda draconian, but at least it's sort-of understandable.
We had our 1st practical a day after our written exam, and I have to say the practical, while difficult, was far easier than the written since it was just identification and simple correlation (innervation, etc). Good luck!
Posted by: Enrico at October 7, 2005 2:11 AM
Wanted to thank you again for the suggestions to get National Depression Screening Day and World Mental Health Day promoted.
Cadavers....I don't know how you med students do it. I can barely look at one on CSI.
Posted by: Deb at October 7, 2005 7:53 AM
Ahh the good old days. You'll look back fondly on these exams. "Identify the strucure within the loop..."
That's silly about not changing your answer, I mean, what if it suddenly hits you...my that's a beautiful trigeminal nerve you have on display there, when suddenly you realize, it's the nasocilliary branch! Sheesh.
Posted by: Doc Shazam at October 9, 2005 3:37 AM
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