Expect the Unexpected: Surgical Knots, Killer Fingers, and More! The Midwestern University Health Careers Institute Begins. . .

We started the program on Thursday with a warm welcome through multiple introductions. Alan Schalscha, D.O., then humored us while informing us about health careers. He gave the non- straight-A students hope to still become medical students. Having Dr. Schalscha as our first lecture speaker was really cool; the way he made it so personal made it seem as if we were just having a conversation (besides the slides changing behind him on the projector). He did say many words that left some, well probably most, of us students wondering what he was even talking about. But next, we got a basic knowledge of medical terms and how to break down words, and I can proudly say that I finally understand some of what Dr. Schalscha said after that medical terminology lesson.

The surgical skills part of the day was so interesting, crazy, fun, and remarkable. We had great people who taught us the ways to tie a square knot, scrub, and how to suture. We also got to see how a surgery works and see clips of an appendectomy. It is crazy how the program fit all of that stuff into a matter of three hours! Some funny things about these areas they showed us were so varied. For example, I never guessed a squared know was so complicated, but while trying to complete a square knot, a granny knot was way easier to get. In addition to that, I never would have thought that scrubbing would take so long and be so detailed. I mean to have to scrub each side of your finger 10 times, than your palm of your hand, to your wrist, and finishing at two inches about the elbow! That is crazy, but has such a good purpose. Overall, it taught me that being a surgeon is way harder than it looks like in shows such as ER, Grey's Anatomy, etc.

Once the day ended, we all left and I, personally, could not wait for more!

Friday started with my personal favorite part of the human anatomy: The Muscles. With different humorous You Tube videos and cool-looking slides, we all learned some interesting facts along with different muscles of the body. I personally learned how contractions of muscles are not as complicated as I had thought. The way everything was broken down just made a lot of sense. Before, when I first learned about how muscles work, I was pretty lost in my school's anatomy class. But the way that physician assistant student Amanda Powers, aka one of my group leaders, explained how myosin and actin worked just clicked.

Next came what I have to say was probably one of the most inspirational speeches I have heard dealing with medicine: the talk about ER physicians. The instructor taught us so much about life in general. He explained how he was still learning, so he still considers himself in school, and his journey was to become an ER physician. He explained what happens in the ER room and how you must always "Expect the Unexpected". The explanations of how residencies and fellowships work left all of us students more clear how the journey works with being a physician. Now, I am really interested in maybe becoming an ER physician. J

But my all time favorite part of the day and probably of the week was the Osteopathic portion! It was led by Anthony Carnell, one of the group leaders and a second-year medical student. They taught us all how a D.O. is different than an M.D. After a short history lesson of D.O. schools, training, and practices, we were split into groups and went to different stations for hands-on stuff. In the palpation station, we had to feel through different amounts of layers to identify different objects that were in the box. Next was the spine station. Here we learned a technique called "killer fingers," and man did that feel great! We also learned about how the vertebrae work. Lastly, we had the fascia station, where thermal bands were used to act as fake fascia. We all were able to see how the fascia moves and feels from the thermal bands, then moved on to feeling how fascia feels on our partners. Since I want a career in sports medicine, this part of the program was one of my favorites!