Nervous System Seminar, PBL, and POD

I am so tired today and glad that it's Friday! Our seminar was split up into two parts. I was in Dr. Najm's group first. He's hysterical. You know how there are some people who when they laugh, you can't help laughing too? He has that kind of laugh. His powerpoint was like sixty slides long, and I told him there was no way he could get through them all in an hour. He told me that he would, and sure enough he did, but he had to skip some.

The second half of the seminar was led by another neurologist who was puzzling about the fact that the sensory homunculus has the genitals right next to the feet. A homunculus is a drawing that maps where the nerves from each part of the body travel to in the brain. There are actually two homunculi, one for the motor nerves and one for the sensory nerves. If you click on the link, you can see how exaggerated the hands and faces of the homunculi are. This shows how certain body parts, like the lips and fingers, get proportionally more innervation for their actual size than do other body parts, like the trunk. So this neurologist concluded that the location of the genitals next to the feet on the sensory homunculus is the origin of some people's foot fetishes. We told him that the genitals are located there because the spinal nerves that go to the genitals come out of the spinal cord right below the ones that go to the feet. Neurologists are totally weird. I'm adding neurology to my list of possible specialties.

Our PBL session was kind of pointless. I told you that we basically had no learning objectives or case for today. So we talked a little bit about the CAPPs for this week, and then we talked about Medicaid. Here is some really shocking news for you: it's a lot more expensive to get surgery done and stay in a hospital now than it was sixty years ago. And another shocker: it sucks to be poor and not have insurance, especially if you're chronically ill. We wound up getting out a little early though, so I had some time to print out the reading for next week before POD.

POD was kind of rough too. The speaker was doing outcomes research for multiple sclerosis. She was basically doing a pilot project to set up a secure web page for people with MS to be able to communicate with their doctors and get info and support. It's a neat idea, but good god, I was not up for another hour of looking at boring powerpoint slides after that PBL session. Plus, I ate one cookie too many and have been feeling nauseated since about midway through her talk. Since no one really asked questions, she finished early. I have to meet with my PA in a little while to go over my portfolio essay. After that, I'm going home to relax.