I'm engulfed by midterms, presentations, quizzes, and a business
plan this week! Now, throw in an evening with detailed and proper
instructions on female and male sensitive exams. These are the
prostate and rectal exams for males and the gynecological exams for
females. No problem right? We've performed these exams a number of
times on the dummies in lab. We have the procedure down pat and
know EXACTLY what we are doing. Well, I'll just put things this
way: The dummies in lab don't talk back to tell you how to perform
the exam or that what you are doing is either uncomfortable,
medically sound or, if you are really off-track from being nervous,
creepy feeling!
Back to the beginning of the story: Part of the Advanced
Clinical Encounters class is to show competency for gender specific
sensitive exams by performing the exam on a human being. We don't
perform the exams on each other or on volunteers. We have
professional instructor models visit our school whose job is to
travel between medical schools to instruct students, as the exam is
performed. The environment during the exams is very relaxed and
upbeat. We have two instructors in the examination room. One
instructor is the model and the other is the lecturer or lab
instructor.
We are verbally walked through each step of the exam process. As
we cover a structure on the body, we are walked through the
examination procedure for that structure, what to expect and what
normal vs. abnormal findings will look or feel like. Once that
section is explained, each student is expected to complete the
entire exam for that procedure, including communication with the
patient during the examination. We are instructed on key words to
use such as "everything appears normal and healthy" as opposed to
"everything looks good/great'," as that phrasing can leave some
interpretation in meaning to some patients.
The instructors use plenty of humor and laughs to help the
students relax and realize that we are present to learn about the
human body and all of it structures, functions and ailments. These
exams are provided so that we can learn on a human being. The
instructors are gracious enough and comfortable enough to take a
group of nervous students and help them concentrate on performing
an exam that could help to save a person's life one day.
Walking into the exam was a bit nerve wracking, especially as a
male walking into a female sensitive exam lab scenario. Yet by the
time my group had finished the lab session, I was in amazement at
the resiliency, structure, form, and function of structures that I
had seen in anatomy lab many times in an inert framework. To see
these structures in a clinical setting, performing as they do on a
live human being was miraculous to me.
Gathering Update
All teams who are working on the Gathering are in high gear as
we near the weekend of November 9-11! We have all the
speakers confirmed with topics that I hope to share prior to the
Gathering weekend. The Opening Ceremony Team is hard at work
rehearsing for the big day.
The drummers working outside a couple of weeks ago.
(L-R) Katie, Nakiesha, Wendy, Lauren and Alaina
I'm very proud of everyone who is working hard to make the
Gathering a huge success. Our little school is going to shine very
brightly because of the students and faculty who make it
special!
I am also very grateful this week for the instructors who visit
our school and choose to share of themselves for others to learn
and perhaps catch a problem early that will save a life
someday.