Our biology instructor, Dr. Crouch, advised us to strongly consider taking a cell biology course before attending professional school. Considering that cell biology is actually required for my university's biology curriculum for the health science path, I will most likely take cell biology. A professor from Lincoln's dental college came to lecture for approximately 2 hours. As it was mostly cell biology and biochemistry, I didn't totally understand the whole lecture, but I could follow the beginning. I can't wait until I take cell biology!!
"Pain is whatever the experiencing person says it is, exisiting whenever he says it does"--Margo McCafferty. That's a quote that our pain lecture started off with today. Most interesting fact I learned today about pain? Redheads are apparently harder to anesthetize due to their protein make-up! We also learned various different methods to help ease pain: hypnosis, psychotropic drugs, exercise, neurosurgery, and so many more. Pain can be classified by its time length, its etiology (that is, malignant of nonmalignant), and mechanism. Dr. Crouch also introduced us to pain pathways and the biphasic pain response.
We also learned about interesting pain sensing "dysfuncions." Hyperalgesia is the increased perception of painful stimuli, whereas allodynia is pain sensation from normally nonpainful stimuli. Even though I don't suffer from those problems, it was cool to hear stories from Dr. Crouch about people who he's seen suffer. Afterward, one of our TAs told us how lucky we are to hear lectures like this as undergrads BEFORE we get to medical school. :)
After lunch, librarian Mrs. Hartman from UNMC's McGoogan library visited us again to remind us with some tips that we need to keep in mind in order to be better life-long learners. Her tips were:
1) Be curious
2) Learn to filter
3) Evaluate what is important
4) Reduce assumptions (both about others and about yourself)
5) Use a library
Mrs. Hartman also told us a little interesting story. One question on an exam in the College of Nursing was, "What is the name of the person who cleans our floor?" It's important to acknowledge everyone because everyone is important, regardless of whether they are a famous, well-respected person...or simply a janitor. Cool, right? I hope everyone got that question right!
"Pain is whatever the experiencing person says it is, exisiting whenever he says it does"--Margo McCafferty. That's a quote that our pain lecture started off with today. Most interesting fact I learned today about pain? Redheads are apparently harder to anesthetize due to their protein make-up! We also learned various different methods to help ease pain: hypnosis, psychotropic drugs, exercise, neurosurgery, and so many more. Pain can be classified by its time length, its etiology (that is, malignant of nonmalignant), and mechanism. Dr. Crouch also introduced us to pain pathways and the biphasic pain response.
We also learned about interesting pain sensing "dysfuncions." Hyperalgesia is the increased perception of painful stimuli, whereas allodynia is pain sensation from normally nonpainful stimuli. Even though I don't suffer from those problems, it was cool to hear stories from Dr. Crouch about people who he's seen suffer. Afterward, one of our TAs told us how lucky we are to hear lectures like this as undergrads BEFORE we get to medical school. :)
After lunch, librarian Mrs. Hartman from UNMC's McGoogan library visited us again to remind us with some tips that we need to keep in mind in order to be better life-long learners. Her tips were:
1) Be curious
2) Learn to filter
3) Evaluate what is important
4) Reduce assumptions (both about others and about yourself)
5) Use a library
Mrs. Hartman also told us a little interesting story. One question on an exam in the College of Nursing was, "What is the name of the person who cleans our floor?" It's important to acknowledge everyone because everyone is important, regardless of whether they are a famous, well-respected person...or simply a janitor. Cool, right? I hope everyone got that question right!