I'll be puffing a little air into your ear canal now...

Today was Physical Diagnosis and we were able to practice on each other in the CAPE.  My physical diagnosis partner for the next couple semesters is an older guy (not old, but in his late 40s, early 50s) who actually worked as an Army medic in Special Forces for years.  He's got some great techniques and is already teaching me a lot...and he's my partner!  Today we practiced doing Ear, Nose, and Throat exams.  I would be doing fine with Greg as my patient and then a faculty member would walk in to observe and I would forget everything!  I guess that's good to have that little bit of anxiety to make me work harder to really cement how to do these exams.  Anyways, Greg was examining my tympanic membrane and forgot to tell me he was going to blow a little bit of air to assess if the TM had any holes in it.  Woah!  Made me jump big for sure.  It is really neat when you get to see the TM move against the pressure, though.  It looks like a blister being flexed or a piece of cellophane being crinkled.

In Physical Diagnosis lecture, we were lucky to have a PA who practices in dermatology give the lecture.  She has so much experience already and is only 7 years out of school.  She primarily lectured on pathology and how to assess what is called skin lesions (which encompasses moles, freckles, scars, etc).  She also told us about her most memorable patient ever.  I won't write about this story, for fear that anyone who reads this will quit reading it!  However, if you really want to know, ask me next time we talk.  It's....odd enough that she said when she examined this patient, she turned white and had to leave the room.  She also stated that EVERYONE needs to be wearing sunscreen, especially here in Colorado.  She said that she sees this one patient every 3 months and every time has to remove more of his nose because he is a fair skinned farmer and keeps developing melanomas, basal carcinomas, and squamous carcinomas.  She highly recommended doing a derm rotation when we get the option, saying that even if we don't want to do derm, it would still be beneficial.