Alright, well it has been over a month since I last wrote in. It was really good to have the 3 days off for Thanksgiving break. Although after the break, I was not ready to go back to school. Now I’m just looking forward to Christmas break.

But to get to Christmas Break, I have to get through another test week. Stress levels are up now. During our last set of exams, the class didn’t do so well on the Physical Diagnosis (Cardiac) exam. We need a 68% to pass the class. Class average for the exam was 66%. Yeah, there weren’t very many happy people after that week.

Fortunately, the professors decided that its more important for us the learn the material. They said that they will take all the questions from the first test and put about 5 in each of our tests from now until the end of the year. At years’ end, we will be able to replace the score from our first test by adding up the points from the cardiac questions that were scattered throughout the year.

Since the last set of exams we have also started Auscultation Lab. Its pretty cool. We sit in this amphitheater and each student is given a pair of “stethophones.” The top part is just like a stethoscope but there is not diaphram attached to it. Instead, there is a box that holds the battery, volume control, and IR receiver. The instructor then can play any heart sounds they want and we all hear the same thing. Next quarter we get to use the simulation lab with the dummy where we can listen to all the heart sounds, measure JVP, BP, and other vitals. Oh what fun $250,000 can buy you these days.