Technology in Medicine (Sci-fi or Reality?)

Today, we had the amazing opportunity to speak with Dr. Dienst via Skype. He currently works in the ICU of a hospital in Florida. We all wrote questions to ask him including his experiences and journey through medicine. In his presentation, he focused on the aorta which is a very important area of the heart. He explained to us the different methods fixing ruptured aortas through open surgery as well as the creation of stents. He described to us how the skeleton of the stent is constructed of metal wire and a cloth is then stitched to each wire, creating the stent. He also focused on explaining how much the methods used in medicine have evolved throughout the years as he told us how about 70% of the methods that he uses today in his medicinal career, wasn’t around when he first became a doctor. This shows how much medicine has advanced within the recent years and how much there is to learn for doctors. He also explained to us the education that he received and what future doctors would take in college courses. We also learned some of the daily pressures associated with being a doctor including being able to function with little to no sleep and the fact that you are responsible for the health of the people you operate on. Also, he explained to us his two experiences outside of the hospital in which he performed the Heimlich Maneuver in order to save someone who was choking. This shows how much the material that you have learned can and will most likely need to be used outside of the office. This discussion gave me a lot of insight as to what it is like to be a medical doctor including the journey there, the everyday experiences involved, and very important responsibilities.

We were very excited to have the opportunity to dissect rabbits today! We first had to tan the rabbit, meaning to remove the skin from the body of the rabbit. We did this by making a shallow incision along the skin using scissors and using a probe to remove the connective tissue that was connecting the skin to the body of the rabbit. We thought that this was the most interesting and surprising part of the dissection today as we were able to see how taxidermists remove the skin from animals and we realized that it was a relatively easy process to carry out with the proper tools.

After tanning the rabbit and removing most of the skin, we were able to completely see all of the muscular structures of the rabbit. We then made careful incisions in the thoracic region of the rabbit, cutting along the sternum and exposing the heart and lungs. We were able to locate and count the lobes of the lungs as well as find the aorta of the heart. We then made careful incisions making our way to the head of the rabbit. Along the neck, we were able to locate the trachea as well as the esophagus below the trachea. Another surprising part of the dissection was finding how thin and flexible the esophagus was as all of us thought it was a more pronounced and structural component. From this, we were able to see how and why food sometimes gets “stuck” in our esophagus and how it feels like it is hard to breath because of the pressure on the trachea from the esophagus. The most difficult part of today’s dissection was trying not to cut too deep into the internal organs and muscle of the rabbit. When making our first incisions into the sternum area of the rabbit, we started making more shallow incisions, ensuring that we weren’t puncturing any of the organs. We then gradually made deeper incisions, eventually exposing the thoracic area of the rabbit.

 

Today, we had the amazing opportunity to speak with Dr. Dienst via Skype. He currently works in the ICU of a hospital in Florida. We all wrote questions to ask him including his experiences and journey through medicine. In his presentation, he focused on the aorta which is a very important area of the heart. He explained to us the different methods fixing ruptured aortas through open surgery as well as the creation of stents. He described to us how the skeleton of the stent is constructed of metal wire and a cloth is then stitched to each wire, creating the stent. He also focused on explaining how much the methods used in medicine have evolved throughout the years as he told us how about 70% of the methods that he uses today in his medicinal career, wasn’t around when he first became a doctor. This shows how much medicine has advanced within the recent years and how much there is to learn for doctors. He also explained to us the education that he received and what future doctors would take in college courses. We also learned some of the daily pressures associated with being a doctor including being able to function with little to no sleep and the fact that you are responsible for the health of the people you operate on. Also, he explained to us his two experiences outside of the hospital in which he performed the Heimlich Maneuver in order to save someone who was choking. This shows how much the material that you have learned can and will most likely need to be used outside of the office. This discussion gave me a lot of insight as to what it is like to be a medical doctor including the journey there, the everyday experiences involved, and very important responsibilities.