Clin Path = meh

Sorry no posts for awhile. As you might have guessed from said lack of posts, last week's Clinical Pathology rotation wasn't super-exciting.

Which is too bad. Because Clin Path was pretty much my favorite class from sophomore year. If you know me, you can guess why: reports with lots of concrete numerical values that all have a given set of explanations that you have to piece together like a puzzle and (at least in class) there's usually one right answer? Yes, please!

Junior clin path rotation was basically an intensive 18-hour review of the most relevant points from sophomore year. And since I pretty much remembered everything from sophomore year since I loved the class, that meant that junior rotation was pretty boring.

We did get to do some fun microscope stuff. It included red blood cell pathology, white blood cell pathology, WBC differential counts, platelet evaluation, fluid cytology, and mass cytology. The last thing we were supposed to do on microscopes was learn how to do urine sediment exams (which, out of all the microscopy, was the one thing I need the most practice in) -- but the darned sophomores had to use the microscope lab, so we basically just watched a PowerPoint presentation about urine sediments -- which is totally not the same as doing it yourself. But oh well.

I did gain a bit of a reputation in this rotation for being a clin path know-it-all. Since there were only 25 people, I felt a little more comfortable speaking up and offering answers than I usually do in our massed class of 135. Everybody was amazed when I came up with the answer that, yes, a 3+ positive blood pad on a urine dipstick with a specific gravity of 1.003 and no red blood cells seen on urine sediment could in fact have been hematuria (rather than only myoglobinuria or hemoglobinuria) because the specific gravity was so dilute that the osmotic forces would result in lysis of the RBCs within the urine. So there. Go me.

I guess it was a useful rotation -- well, it would be especially for anybody that didn't like or didn't do well in clin path lecture class as sophomores.

But now on to bigger and better things! I've got my first independent study coming up next week -- I'm doing a cadaver project with the semi-creepy instructor in charge of the anatomy lab and obtaining all of the 'specimens.' If all goes well, though, I'll have my own canine skull, feline skull, and canine hindlimb and forelimb to keep for my very own self at the end of next week.