Review: Day Sixteen

Gonna start picking it up with the school work soon. Been studying more muscles than reading lately.

Once our online access is granted, I'm so gonna tear into those assignments and get them done early so they won't be hanging over my head the whole weekend. This has to be a fun weekend for me; there won't be many (or any) after that!

Any other budding PTAs out there know what I'm saying?

Review: Day Fifteen

Gotta make this one shorter than the others. My life outside PTA school is about to become a speck of what it once was. I'll have time to keep up the blog but probably not much. Weekend articles may get smaller, but hopefully nonetheless interesting for you folks to read. Usually they take about an hour to research (including APA citation; I'll get better at that as I go) and roughly 30-45 minutes to type. Might be cutting my overall content by about a third, so it all takes an hour. We'll see! If I have time, my best use of it will be putting my face between the pages.

Got most of my books today, save one. I have to order that one online. It's a lab book though, so I probably won't need it during the first week anyway.

So long for now. Got some muscles to work out before hitting the books again.

Review: Day Fourteen

More review of the muscles and nerves. Been studying mostly at work. I'm eight days from quitting my part-time job to devote all my free time to school.

It's been a long struggle but I think I'm finally getting it all together. Mostly now I just have to work on being able to "demonstrate" each action at each major muscle and be able to point out where each origin/insertion is, which can't be as difficult as memorizing each in the first place.

Looking forward to finally getting back into the classroom, though. Those A&P courses are wonderful but they don't adequately prepare you for the rigor of the program (or so I hear); when I did my observation hours a few months ago, I spoke with a PTA who was also a state APTA board member who told me he had (keyword: HAD) to study for four hours a night.

While all the extra study time doesn't bother me much, the class-wide presentations plus the clinicals plus the extra study time might.

We'll just have to see.

Review: Day Thirteen

Another day, another re-acquaintance with muscles and bones. I'm getting awesome at determining where each major landmark is, and telling which muscle is which type. Jury's still out on whether I could do it on a test (when it really counts), but I know I won't completely fail either, so that's a slight relief.

A huge milestone for me today was that I bought a new laptop (Acer Aspire E series). It was basically the same price as my old one that busted after four years of extensive use but has twice the memory and RAM -- which is still nothing to write home about really, but it gets my writing and research stuff done no problem, so it's good for school.

I'm sorry these updates have been coming in kind of late recently. It's been hectic getting things done while keeping a regular update schedule. I mean, I hadn't had a laptop for a while. But my updates will be on a regular schedule soon after, and hopefully won't deviate too much from here on.

Review: Day Twelve

Today I got more of the muscle/nerve/bone stuff done while running around getting immunizations and buying equipment. Turns out that my campus bookstore is open during super inconvenient times while the bookstore of a neighboring university (and my alma mater) has the stuff I need at super inconvenient prices. Goniometers? Gait belts? Sphygmomanometers? All terribly priced. BUT at least I'll get them in time, rather than taking time off work to buy ones at slightly reduced prices... right?


Right?


Getting immunizations has been a terrible pain too, but at least it's finally done. I got three injections plus I need to go back for a couple more (two-step/three-step injections). So... here's hoping I don't have TB! Or Hep B! Or Tetanus!


Seriously. Tetanus is nothing to mess with. I have seen photos, and there are a few famous paintings (you can see them online) of people with tetanus. Looks like one of the worst ways to go. Like medieval torture-bad.

Review: Day Eleven

What little time I've spent not doing clerical chores, I've spent either studying or eating meals. It's been pretty much non-stop paperwork chores all day today. Had to get a bunch of pre-orientation materials printed out and turned in to the proper offices, then shop around for equipment (goniometers, gait belt, etc.) for the first lab which I believe we're doing on orientation day. Either way it's better to get the purchase out of the way now rather than later.

I was sent a bunch of review materials through email Friday, and I've been going over them since. It's probably going to take precedence over the muscle origin/insertion/action/nervation stuff though I know those are necessary too. I just can't ever feel 110% confident on any of it, and that frustrates me to a great extent.

In more positive news, however, with all of these chores out of the way, I'm several steps closer to being properly prepared (physically, anyway) for orientation and the start of class proper. I really can't even begin to express how excited I am to finally have classes that seem more than tangentially relevant to my career.

How about you guys? What are your career goals/ambitions? If you're in a health profession already, how do you feel about it and what is your ultimate goal (e.g. academia, research, public office, etc.)?

Review: Day Nine

Reviewed more muscle diagrams at work today. Had a good time of it, though I was distracted by my impending resignation from the library, which I sent in to the main administrative offices. One door closing, a much brighter, nicer one opening. Can't complain about that!

Review: Day Eight

More muscle diagrams. Been going over the physical therapy textbooks though. They have some interesting ways of putting it all together that make this seem like more than just a bunch of memorization. It's definitely been worth it to take a look.

I'm hoping when time comes to apply all this knowledge, at least SOME of it will stick. So far it's been eye-opening how much review there is to do in so little time, plus how easily you tend to forget the things you studied when you were in "test mode." I remember going over the nerves and their functions by myself at a local coffee shop and literally just telling myself to "run through them again" if I wasn't 100%. I'm hoping a similar approach will be helpful here (I did well in the nervous system sections of A&P I, after all).

Anyone out there ever had something you just had to get 100% on, regardless of how much of a struggle it seemed? I'd love to know in the comments.

I've been at this pre-physical therapy stuff for so long now it's starting to feel old hat. And I've only been at it a week and a half!

C'mon, school!

Review: Day Seven

Still more muscle diagrams. The muscles of the extremities are the worst. The head, face, and trunk muscles are fine, I have them all down for the most part (only in name and position, not O/I/A/N), but the arm/leg muscles have a lot of little stabilizer muscles that all have a very specific function with very specific origin/insertion/action/innervation.

So, it's been less than fun, you could say!

Anyway. I'll have more about the arm/leg muscles throughout the week, probably.

Review: Day Six

More review. Basic neurology this time. Gotta get those cranial nerves down. Usually I love talking about neurology because it's by far one of the most fascinating and complicated systems in the body.

Reviewing material to get re-acclimated, however, less so.

A friend lent me his textbooks from when he attended the program a few years ago, so I'm trying to integrate some of the information in those books with my old anatomy text. It's actually going far better than I expected.

Anyone out there ever had a similar experience? Trying to study a bunch of things at once and just trying out different ways of integrating said material? I don't believe in the old "sleep with your book under your pillow" tripe a lot of old teachers used to joke about doing but I'm willing to try almost anything.

Review: Day Five

Today I had to go back to work at my library job (which I've been intermittently doing this week) so I couldn't get a whole lot of study/review time in, but I did break out the muscle O/I/A/N sheets and start to glance at them a bit. It's hard to study on 15 minutes of break time, however, so I think I'll have to give it another go later on tonight perhaps.

I'll be finishing up my review work this week and you won't see a post from me on Saturday (Saturdays will be my off days/research for big article days). I'll pop back on Sunday though and give the "long article" thing a go for the first of it. I have a few ideas in the pipeline, but I have yet to fully form them in my head and research them. Again, this is something that requires more time and preparation than I'm clearly giving it at the moment...

I'd be interested in hearing topics from any of you out there who might be learning about the human body or anything physical therapy/medical related. I can even make it about something fitness oriented (sport physiology totally overlaps with the purpose of this blog) as long as we concern ourselves with covering the topic in some level of technical detail. Maybe to give an example: the physiology of gait training/how it relates to balance and performance in sports? As opposed to just a general article about walking upright.

You get the idea.

I'll be thinking about it. I'll get back to you on Sunday.

Review: Day Four

Decided to kind of take it easy with the memorization today and mostly reflect on what I've learned the last few days. Taking in manageable chunks of information at a time. Find (or make) some questions to test my knowledge, answer (or look up answer), rinse and repeat.

So you could say it's been a bit hard translating 3-3 1/2 chapters into one long study session, but my hope is that if I simply keep at it long enough it'll stick.

This is how I spent most of my time in A&P, basically, just going over the fundamentals. Luckily my textbook has exercises that put my knowledge to better use than simply "knowing the answer;" we had a whole section of clinical thinking exercises that place our terms in realistic situations we may or may not encounter, and had us thinking through the problems until we came to proper conclusions (it's almost like you have a bit of lee-way in terms of said conclusions; more than one way to peel a potato, so the expression goes).

So that's been a fun reprieve. Any of you out there enjoy studying A&P so much you can't wait to get to those sections? They do help put things in perspective. I also enjoyed creating case studies surrounding health dilemmas and having to think them through with my classmates. I've never felt so happy putting "hypoglycemia" on a piece of paper when we came to the diagnosis.

Review: Day Three

I'm pretty much spending all my time on histology and cells today. It's been a long time since I had to even look at a cell through a microscope, much less talk about mitochondria and epithelial cells. I've always hated discussing those chapters, they were never my strong suit. I'm more of a bones/nerves/muscles kinda guy myself.

Speaking of which, bones/nerves/muscles are, from what I understand, the majority of the review I absolutely need to have memorized and able to quickly recall when thinking about the human body. I guess I really do need a lot more than that, but I've been hearing a lot about daily tests in which you need to know proper origins/insertions/nervations for each muscle in every major muscle group.

So that's fun. I might need to work on that, especially.

What were some of your strengths/weaknesses when it came to studying/working with the concepts of A&P? What did some of you out there enjoy or hate about your favorite/hated section? I really wanna know!

Review: Day Two

Things are coming along a little better. I started off with the utmost basic of topics yesterday (organization of the body, cells and organelles, etc.) and am now onto the chemistry review -- which typically serves to remind you of the things you may have forgotten in Chem 101. It’s all fairly simple, and a diligent student like myself (I can hear my family and friends laughing at that one) should be able to recognize most of the major concepts on a test or review of some sort, given one.

I know full well my study time is not going to move as quickly as this. Pretty soon I’ll be spending an entire afternoon on trying to remember all the bones and their markings (which was NOT some of my favorite material to remember, regardless of how useful it is).

If any of you out there are or were in PT school (or med school, or nursing school, etc.) and had to take A&P as a course, what were some of your favorite/least favorite things about your courses? What made you want to come to class every day, and/or what made you completely hate it? Let me know in the comments!

Also, if any of you have any improvements and/or comments/criticisms about the blog, let me know too! I’d like to hear your opinions. The amount of planning that goes into the content of this blog is very stream-of-consciousness, so if there are things I can implement that would maybe streamline things a little bit (I’ve thought of opening a Twitter and sending out tweets about new posts, maybe I’ll do that for weekend posts? I dunno), I’d like to hear your opinions on the matter. Help me help you!

Review: Day One

My big orientation day is August 12. Until then, I’m studying like a first-time A&P student taking his first large exam: trying to cram as much information in on one day as I can remember.

I did fairly well in A&P 1 and 2 when I took them over a year ago, but everyone who’s been in school as long as I have knows full well the rule “if you don’t use it, you lose it.” NEVER is this truer than when studying something as complex as the human body. NEVER. So here I am, filling out sections on a review guide on the human body when I realize that half the material looks almost brand-new. Not a great way to start. A friend of mine once told me that he and his classmates got into the habit of telling their teacher “I promise I’m smarter than this” when he did the program a few years ago. I’m hoping to minimize those moments as much as possible by jumping on this review now and hopefully getting a majority of it down so I can recall the information when needed.