Endocrine Clinic

It's fortunate that I got that book about women's health on Monday when I had the chance, because my learning objective for Friday is about hormone replacement therapy (HRT). There are two chapters in there describing all of the HRT drugs, and it is even readable and informative. The seminar today was about puberty disorders. That is some weird stuff. I hadn't realized though how young normal girls are when they begin puberty. I would have guessed about age 12, but that's just the average age when girls start menstruation. Girls begin developing breasts and pubic hair a couple of years earlier, around age 10.

This afternoon, I had endocrine clinic. My classmates who went yesterday were complaining that all they saw were diabetes patients. But today my classmate and I saw all thyroid patients, except for one infertility patient. I think this doc we were with must be a thyroid specialist. It was so busy in the clinic though that we really didn't get a chance to discuss anything with him much. Plus, there was also a fourth year med student working with him. So my classmate and I didn't wind up getting to do very much except for once when the doc had to leave the room to answer a page. That patient had hyperthyroidism and was willing to let my classmate and me both examine his thyroid. I couldn't really notice too much difference from a normal thyroid. Maybe it felt a little softer and slightly enlarged, I guess.

When it was time for us to go, the doc offered to let us stay on and keep following him and the fourth year student around, but my classmate and I had both seen enough for one day. The endocrine clinic was more interesting than I had expected it to be, but I was disappointed about how little we got to do compared to some of the other students in my class.