Sutures and Snow

This was a good week. We started the Nephrology unit, and spent the majority of the week on that topic. We had lectures on chronic kidney disease, dialysis, transplants, kidney stones, acid/base/metabolites, and a whole host of other kidney topics. We had a few really good lecturers this unit. It is great to have lecturers who are passionate about what they do.

We had a few more lectures on behavioral medicine. One of them was on personality disorders. The lecturer spent most of the time showing us examples from movies. It was a nice break from the monotony of power point. We also had a small group exercise where we acted out how to deal with difficult patients. The three scenarios were a COPD patient that did not want to quit smoking, a flirty patient who asked the PA out for a drink, and a patient upset about having to wait so long and then have to see a PA instead of the doctor. It was a really good learning experience.

I saw another patient this week at the hospital to get a history. I really enjoy doing that. I love to meet new people and I like finding out about them. I think that will be one of my favorite things about being a PA.

Friday we learned some more sutures and got to practice them. We also practiced scrubbing in for surgery. I have no doubt that my hands were cleaner than they have ever been. I got some pictures of my sutures. Remember, we were practicing on pigs feet.

This one is a sub cutaneous suture that is below the skin. If you look closely you can see two black, squiggly lines.
These are the vertical and horizontal mattress sutures. The skin is supposed to be raised like that, although I'm sure mine are a little too raised.

We had a winter storm warning for Friday afternoon. All day Thursday and Friday the news was saying that we were going to get 5-10 inches of snow. That is a big deal here. I'm sure that not too many people really thought it would happen, due to the false alarm last time we had a warning. But, it happened. We got 6 inches in Durham. It started about 6:30 Friday night and went all night and into the morning on Saturday. Church was canceled today, because the roads were still covered. By this afternoon, the roads were starting to clear a bit and we were able to go for a drive and get some good pictures.

Lastly, if you have a minute go to http://pa.mc.duke.edu/ and click on the movie in the middle of the page. I have officially made my mark on the Duke PA program.

These are of the PA building and the Duke Chapel.