Role Play

Today was the last day of the Musculoskeletal section of Anatomy. Our first exam is Monday morning, on the enitre musculoskeletal system. AHH! No, really, I'm not expecting it to be that bad. Yesterday we studied the pelvis and lower limb, and finished up the lower limb today. When we first came in, we played a little game with Mrs. Renner, the director, and pretended the articulated skeleton was a patient, and we had to role play the RT. We had to introduce ourselves, get the "patient" to give their name and DOB to verify their identity, and then make sure what the requisition (order) we had received was what the actual patient needed. We were given a slip of paper with an anatomical name of what we were radiographing, which was the quiz part since we were in anatomy. The patients were people like Simon Cowell, Roy Williams, Holden Thorpe, Erskin Bowles, Paula Abdul. And Coach K was one of them too. I said he's unfixable. For the rest of the class, we reviewed. Primarily the lower limb and pelvis, but a little of the rest of the body, too. I feel pretty good about the exam so far, but once I actually start studying we'll see how much I really know!

Today in RadSci we had lab and we also did role play in there! Some of us were patients and had to give signs and symptoms to our "caregivers" and they had to figure out how to help us, which included figuring out what was wrong with us. I was hypoglycemic. It was pretty fun! I didn't expect it to be, I'm not a good actress. Though we did get to see the lab for the first time, with all the equipment in it, which was pretty cool. My friend and I found a back way to the lab, which we shouldn't have been able to do because our badges shouldn't be able to open some of those doors, but they did! It was an adventure.Tomorrow we finish up talking about medications and contrasts, and start catheters, lines, and patient care accessories. We've been looking at contrasts and different ways to give them, the side effects, etc. After our first year of the program, we choose a modality to work with in our summer internship and I believe our whole senior year. I had originally thought MRI (it IS only the second week!), but the downside of that is administering the contrast. I'm not sure how I could handle patients vomiting everyday. And sometimes in MRI you have to give enemas (in common terms, put stuff up the butthole). But besides that, it seems pretty cool! A couple of the other people I eat lunch with mentioned MR, too, so that would be fun to be in it together. Okay! Now you are up to speed.