Neuroanatomy, PBL, and Transplant Surgery Talk

Today was a long day, but it was a good one. We finished up neuroanatomy in the morning. This week we are covering the limbic system, which is responsible for governing emotions. These brain circuits are pretty complex, and I have a lot of trouble keeping them all straight. I think that part of the problem is that I still don't have a very good three-dimensional picture of where things are in the brain. That is something that I need to spend more time working on at some point. I went back to the anatomy lab in the afternoon to review the atlas, but I still need a lot more review.

Our new PBL case is really interesting. It's a pediatrics case, which excited one of my group members who wants to go into peds. Even though there is only one case this week, it's one with enough information for us to come up with a bunch of good learning objectives. I am going to be presenting on normal child development for children between the ages of six and twelve. And the best part is that we are going to meet the patient the case is based on this Friday. He's an adult now, but he is going to talk to us about growing up with his illness. I really like when we get to meet patients. It makes these things we're learning more applicable and interesting.

This evening, a really neat doctor named John Fung gave us a talk about how he became a surgeon for the Surgery Interest Group. One of the interesting things about him is that he also has a Ph.D. in immunology, and he managed to combine his research interest with his surgery interest by going into transplant surgery. Since transplants get rejected due to immune processes, his immunology background is really useful. He still runs a lab that does basic science research in immunology as well as performing liver transplants and running the liver transplant center here at CCF. And like all of the CCF faculty, he invited us to come on one of the organ harvests and to see the surgery. I'm not sure how gung ho I am about doing that, but maybe I will over the summer when I have more time. It would be an interesting experience for sure.

I hadn't realized how big the liver transplant program at CCF is. Here is the link to a brochure describing the CCF liver transplant program. It has a little blurb about Dr. Fung and his background too.