Who knew?

Having never taken an anatomy course before now, I had no idea that every single bone isn't just a single bone.  They each have about two dozen crests and fossae and processes that comprise it and allow it to perform its function.  And just learning the parts of the bones of the forelimb is keeping me majorly busy!  It's only the second day of anatomy lab (again, totally foreign material for the most part) and dissecting our cadaver and then comparing it with models and readings at night really is helping everything come together.  I definitely understand now what we were warned about - it's not the innate difficulty of the material but the sheer volume we have to learn.

Each bone has multiple parts.  Each part attaches to one or multiple muscles or articulates with another bone in a joint.  Each muscle attaches to another bone and performs a certain function in a certain location.  Each of these muscles corresponds to a nerve and blood supply.  And each of these components have long Latin or Greek names that must be spelled correctly.

Oy.

So far, challenging and a little overwhelming but fun.  Our other classes - bacteriology, histology, and physiology - are still in review stage for me, so it's giving me a little break to ease into the groove (intertubercular groove?) of anatomy.

I'm also thinking about what clubs and activities I would like to join.  I'll apply for small animal treatment crew, which is a paid commitment of 2 shifts of 2 hours per month - it's competitive, so I'm not sure I'll even get it.  Club-wise I'll be joining PathHeads (pathology), the small ruminant club, internal medicine club, and critical care club; club members get preference for wet labs but the time commitment outside of that isn't huge.  SCAVMA, of course, will be getting my money so I can join said organizations.  And I'm also thinking about running for some sort of SCAVMA or student government position...but we'll see.

Also, I felt like utter crap today.  Sore, tired, achy, even some tummy-ache this morning.  Hoping that this means that I'll be skipping the next bug to go around closer to exam time!  Tomorrow we get an intro to our evidence-based medicine class where we break into small groups and discuss, research, and analyze individual cases.  I'm hoping that it helps lots of different concepts "gel" into a concrete example that's easy to remember and understand.  I don't think I could handle a whole curriculum of it, but a small amount might help more difficult concepts come into focus.