This Week in Med School: Urology & Anesthesia

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Well I have officially performed my first male physical - which includes an exam of the breast, external genitalia, and rectum.

I think I have mentioned before that my dad is a urologist. Let me just say for the record, the fact that this is a "family business" gave me zero confidence going in - it's not like regular family businesses where you "learn the ropes" as you get older haha. I was cool until an hour before my session, and then suddenly I was having all types of sympathetic interferance - heart palpitations, a slight hand tremor (possibly attributed to my caffeine intake), and even a bit of light-headedness. I guess this is how they guys felt going into the pelvic exams we did in January...

Anyway, our surrogate patient (God bless them) this time did everything possible to make us comfortable and less nervous. He slowly walked the first person in our group through all three parts of the exam, and then would interject anything the rest of the group missed as we all took turns going. through. everything.

In retrospect, it was not so bad, but I still think my minor freak out was appropriate. I mean this was waaaaay out of my comfort zone. I walked away, however, feeling like I could do a male physical on my own without any problems, so I guess all-in-all it was a success...

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What I learned today: 

• Every man should be doing both monthly self-breast and testicular exams.
• Men should start talking to their doc about prostate exams around age 50 - African Americans men and anyone with a first-degree relative diagnosed with prostate cancer is at a higher risk and may want to start thinking about them earlier (i.e. around 40 years old). 

Historically, there has been a great deal of stigma surrounding annual prostate exams. Hopefully, national ad campaigns like these will get more men talking about (and more comfortable with) their health and the importance of this life-saving exam. 

So yea...the verdict is still out on urology, but there is no question that we need to make sure all the men in our lives stay on top of their health :-)

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We also did an Anesthesia lab which consisted of instruction on intubation, venous puncture, and arterial puncture. Here is a snazzy collage of some of my friends and I learning some new clinical skills: