Strange Joys

Through anatomy, I (and other med students I've talked with) have found strange joys and satisfaction. We love removing fascia and being able to see the beautiful striations of muscles below. Distinguishing the veins, arteries, and nerves stuck to each other in large bundles will make us ooooo and awwwww. We also love using tools! Learning the proper reverse scissoring technique was our first big skill (taking a closed scissor and then gently opening it to push things apart rather than cutting anything). We're getting much better with scalpels, dental picks, forceps, and as of today chisels (we needed them in order to remove parts of spinal vertebrae so we could see the spinal cord and dorsal and ventral roots coming off it, soooo cool!). I also really enjoy x-rays, CT scans, and MRIs and being able to see what all these anatomical structures look like inside out, the organization of all the muscles, nerves, bones, etc is really cool. Probably the jigsaw puzzle addict in me loving to think about spatial organization and putting all of this together in my head, and I really like being able to trace muscles and bones in different slices of CT scan moving down the leg or the arm.
Fact of the day: If someone tears their ACL in their knee, they are more likely to also tear their lateral meniscus than their medial meniscus, even though anatomically speaking, more strain should be placed on the medial meniscus. The "unhappy triad" of knee injuries actually isn't that common.
College course gratitude: Thank goodness Anatomy at Olaf taught me about bones because I would be so confused if I didn't have that as a solid base. It would have been nice to know about the carpals and tarsals, we have some fun mnemonics for those!
Also, I wish I could have better learned spatial orientation, and being to see a 2D image and be able to piece it together in my mind to a 3D reality. That would have been helpful. I'm decent at it, but I have room to improve.
This weekend is the big study weekend as we prepare for our first test on Wednesday! I'll be spending most of my days in the lab, wish me luck!