Saturday, January 28, 2006

Panic sets in

One homework due on Monday. Have to read some 30 odd pages for the class too. Yet to start anything for homework.

One exam on Wednesday. Need to read some 60 odd pages on pathology. Good point: it is multiple choice, single answer (unless it is all of the above). Bad point: Pathology, do I need to add anything more? (And that I am very BAD in remembering stuff like that).

So much to do, so little time… I guess I can’t afford a time-turner on the galleons I get as part time assistant (even if I can find somebody to buy it from).

In lieu of that, does anybody know the current rates of Auto Answer Quills or Remembralls or Detachable Cribbing Cuffs? Does anybody know for how many knuts I can get powdered dragon claw? A pint of Brain Elexir? Anything????

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Sunday, January 22, 2006

Yes, I was right...

...when I decided not to be a doctor (of the medical kind).

Now, you will be asking why this sudden bout of patting-myself-on-the-back? The reason was revealed to me in my class last week. In the neurobiology class, we had a lecture about the neural imaging techniques. More of medical stuff than engineering stuff than I care, but all in all it was good lecture. Actual images of tumors, their diagnosis etc. was helpful in understanding the neural anatomy.

And, at the end of lecture, the professor suddenly brings out a case to test our understanding. Till then, he had confined the images to MRI, CT scans etc, but at the last minute, he shows the actual photo of the patient. The case was: a 9 year old girl, running around with knitting needle stumbled and the needle pierced her just above the right eye and went about 2 inches inside. Luckily it missed the eyeball and vital blood vessels. But the picture was enough to show me that I did a service to mankind when I decided to stay away from medical profession.

The professor (he was the doctor on the case) had readied an OR for the girl, and one more for treating the trauma to the father when the mother got there (the girl was with the father when the accident happened). If I had been the doctor on the case, I had have to send for 2 more doctors, one to treat the girl, the other to revive me from shock.




On a happier note, we have to use a software called Sylvius, which is kind of brain atlas on the computer. And it has a ipod version which I have downloaded too. Looks like my ipod is going to be as useful as my laptop in my studies.

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Wednesday, January 11, 2006

Gone with the Wind, A Few Good Men, Fatal Attraction...

Some of the movies (well, clips from movies) we saw in Psychology class.

Now you would be wondering what me, a Biomed Eng student (note the lack of g, US eshtyle), is doing in Psychology class (some of you might want to add “for crying out loud” to the query). To make a short story shorter, it was a part of Neurobiology class I am taking this semester.

Imagine being stuck in a class full of med students for about 6 hours per day, 5 days a week… shudder!!! (though I haven’t attended the class that much). Anyway, last Friday, I was thinking that I would become a sociopath if I hear “psychological disorders” word one more time, when the professor starts showing clips from Hollywood movies, to show character traits of characters with specific personality disorders.

Won’t go in much detail, but it was truly a lecture (at least) I will “remember for rest of my life” (at Duke anyway).



Oh yes, classes have started. Spring ’06 is here. Break is over. Sigh!!!!

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