Courtroom Drama

Well, finally I have something to write about...

As part of my "forensic education", I attended a murder trial yesterday, where my preceptor was testifying as an expert witness. Having never been in a murder trial before (unless, of course, you count the additive year of time I've probably spent watching Law and Order), it was all a little new to me.

The other student and I sat in the gallery, while the pathologist took the stand, and we watched and listened as he took the oath, was introduced to the jury, as began to be questioned by the prosecutor. They began to go through the grisly details of what had happened to the victim, i.e., what was found during the autopsy. As they did so, it became apparent that I was sitting next to the brother of the victim (it was a pretty small gallery). He was (quite understandably), visibly struggling with this information. In fact, families from both the victim and the accused were there, and as you would expect, no one was enjoying what they were hearing.

When it was time to begin viewing the evidence photos that were taken at the autopsy, the judge gave everyone the opportunity to leave if they did not think they could handle seeing them, and actually even had the defendant go look at them in another room before they were presented as evidence. To my surprise, no one from the gallery left. Apparently everyone wanted to, or felt like they had to, see these photographs.

When the defendant returned to the room (escorted by his lawyers and the bailiff, of course), he was obviously shaken, and it looked to me like he was crying. Well, the testimony resumed, and everyone looked through the autopsy photographs on a large projector screen, while my preceptor pointed out his various findings. Again, these photos had no small effect on the people in the gallery.

After that, there was some very perfunctory cross-examination by the defense, and then the judge read some questions from the jury, and just like that, our part of the trial was over. We promptly left the courthouse, and I immediately began wishing I had gone to law school instead returned to the medical foundation.

To sum up, it was a strange experience, and not like anything else I've done in medical school so far.

More than one?!

A day late, and a dollar short

As you may be aware, in addition to lawyer jokes, there are also doctor jokes. There's jokes for pretty much every specialty. Some are funny, and some are not, and others are more like proverbs than jokes. For example...

How do you hide a dollar from a general surgeon? Put it in a journal.
How do you hide a dollar from an orthopedist? Put it in a textbook.
How do you hide a dollar from a heart surgeon? Tape it to their kid's forehead.
How do you hide a dollar from a plastic surgeon? Trick question. You can't!

And some more...

Internists know everything and do nothing.
Surgeons know nothing and do everything.
Pathologists know everything, and do everything, but its always a day too late to help.

I would say that the last one may be right on target. Not that pathologists actually know everything, but when you're going through and doing an autopsy, you pretty much have to go through and look at everything, all the organs and such, to figure out what went wrong. And usually, you figure it out, because everything is opened up right there in front of you. But alas, in the real world (contrary to what happens on House), at that point, it's definitely too late to apologize help.

I apologize for being a bit morbid... To help cheer you up, I'll leave you with my all-time favorite doctor joke...
 What do you call two orthopedists looking at an EKG? A double-blind study!

Au jus...

Been back in South Bend for a few days, getting settled in, trying to get into the pathology swing of things for my Forensic Pathology rotation, and definitely liking the hours so far... went in at 9 am today, and not 'til noon tomorrow! (What is this, some kind of vacation or something?!)

So, most of what I'm doing for the month will be attending autopsies (only one so far), and learning all about how to do them, and also attempting to get a research paper published... ouch... oh, and did I mention studying?

At any rate, in addition to all the studying, I've decided that since I'm studying forensics, I should go ahead and read Crime and Punishment, while listening to this song, err... I mean this one on repeat.

I've also decided that while I'm in town I may as well stop in and give the higher-ups my two cents about who should replace Charlie Weiss... since I've got so much clout around here...

Today was my last clinic day of the pediatrics clerkship. As always, there's a big exam coming up tomorrow morning, and since I'm just about fed up with studying, I thought I'd give the world wide web the run-down. I think the most important thing at this point is just to recap what I feel were some of my successes in the past month.

First, I did not get sick from any of the kids. Even when they coughed in my face, which is a pretty common occurrence. I attribute this to a healthy immune system, daily multivitamins (well, actually, I always forget...), plenty of rest, good genes, a can-do attitude, and last--but not least--lots and lots of Diet Mountain Dew.

Second, I successfully avoided changing any babies' diapers throughout the entire clerkship. Not that I wouldn't have if the need arose. But it was sort of a goal of mine, and I'm certainly not complaining.

Third, I like to think I saved about 400 kids' lives in the past month.

On a more serious note, I'd like to think I learned a lot too. I doubt I'll be a pediatrician (don't think I could handle the parents...), but I did learn a lot about dealing with sick kids, and I think I learned a lot about medicine in general, and how to be a good doctor (which I guess could come in handy some day).

I also learned that most abdominal pain is children is caused by eating Fire-Hot Cheetos and the true meaning of the phrase "attention deficit"!

Earlier today I finished my week-long stint in the newborn infant nursery, where I was supposed to learn how to take care of the medical issues that newborn babies have. Mostly I spent the week learning how to do a good "check up" for a newborn baby, and trying to dress and undress babies.

What else did I learn in the past week? Well, for one thing, I learned that baby clothes are weird! How am I supposed to get those things on and off a baby?!

I'm just about done with my whole pediatrics experience, just another week and a half, and one of those national final exams to go, and then I'm off to South Bend and the wide world of forensic pathology! In an aside, if anyone ever suggests that you watch the movie "Pathology", don't.

So there you have it. To recap, baby clothes are confusing...

Skills

Occasionally, I think to myself about how it would be nice to have additional skills. Like maybe if I knew more about computers, or how to speak other languages. You know, things that might be useful in my day-to-day life, making work easier, or more productive or, just making life all-around more enjoyable.
And where would one go to acquire said skills? Well, depending on what the skill is, I suppose you could go to your local library, enroll yourself in some karate lessons, or quickly search the internet for a how-to video. Or in my case, you could have had a different major in college.

I mean, how often do I think to myself, "Matt, it would be really nice if you knew Spanish right now, so you could talk to these people without using the translator phone...", or, "If I knew more about computers, maybe I could sabotage the hospital's computer records system so they would decide that now's the time to get one that works, and also wasn't written in QuickBASIC."

But, as it is, I've just got my lowly degree in biology, which means I could probably tell you how to clone a gene, or calculate a mutation rate or maybe even tell you why moss grows on the north side of trees, but can't necessarily do "cold-call sales", "drive truck", negotiate a contract, or even properly operate an iron.

There is one major benefit to a working knowledge of biology in medicine, though. When a kid comes in, and I've got to look in their ears with my otoscope, I can tell them that they've got WAY cooler things in their ears than "a monkey" like my doctor told me as a kid. Like, orangutans, or bonobos. Well, on second thought, maybe not bonobos. Maybe fiddler crabs? Cacelians? Or trees with moss growing on the north side?