Drexel University College of Medicine - Medic Yearbook (Philadelphia, PA)

Page 19 text:

ran. When all this was done the National Boards loomed before us. Some of us had been preparing for weeks, while others decided to guts it. A few sought courage from the bottle on the eve of the exams, most of us sought it for the week thereafter. There was a vicious rumor spreading around that the AMA in cooperation with Hahnemann's se- curity guards had successfully prevented the publication of a picture showing our entire class answering the questions with our eyes closed. Needless to say, most of us made it through the gauntlet - we were halfway home. Slowly, painfully, the realization came to us - perhaps, somehow, we did learn something in the past 2 years. September, 1962, we entered our Junior year. Starched white coats, with stethoscopes bulging from the pockets, black bags filled with instru- ments we barely knew how to use, and that all knowing look that comes with the knowledge that it's all downhill from now on . . . thus we began our Clinical Years . From this point on, gentlemen, you are clinicians. You will be expected to look and act as physicians at all times. Consider assigned patients as your own - a complete Hx 8. P.E. including a rectal exam and daily progress notes are mandatory. lt you have any questions, don't hesitate to approach your resident or attending staff man. They will cooperate to the fullest. Every attempt will be made to allow you to perform as many therapeutic and diagnostic procedures as possible - with ade- quate supervision, of course. Any questions? ---- yes? lst student: Can we write PERLA7' No, that's not an acceptable abbreviation. 2nd student: lwhispering to firstl What's PERLA7' 3rd student: l'm on Ward Medicine - where do I stay at nite? On the floor. l-loving been properly oriented, we proceeded with feigned vigor to our respective ward or C service assignments. For most of us, JUNlOR lvlEDlClNE was an excellent experience, packed with patients and pedagogy. Who could fail to be impressed by Dr. Mason's soft-spoken suavity, Dr. Fuchs' knowledge of pathophysiology, Dr. lvlcGarry's cardio- logical skillsg and, Dr. Oaks' nuggets and inexhaustability? lf the ward patients seemed somewhat less sophisticated, they were certainly no less of a source of pathology and humor.

Page 18 text:

'11, 1 vf . I PM QT V 5 i I Q h -J iv '. -. V! 0 C ,t L 'I' ' .I -'af x at mi' C ' I 1 a tetrology and thanks to the eagerness of one of our classmates who wanted to measure the degree of pulmonary stenosis with his index finger, everyone after him made the wrong diagnosis - Eisenmenger's complex. Rosy ManigIia's course in Clinical Path was supposed to be a respite where we could fall back and regroup, and perhaps improve our overall average, but the final exam almost proved to be our undoing - even Page 81 Culver fiunked. When the course ended we breathed a sigh of relief, and went away with a feeling of pride. Pride at having met a challenge successfully. Pride in our new knowledge of life and the corruption thereof. Let it be said that course in Pathology was a source of constant stimula- tion. It was here that the basis of clinical medicine was conceived. Regina gravida erat. EDC 6f4f64. PHARMACOLOGY DriIled us in fundamentals of drug actions and uses, and taught us to disdain Brand names in favor of the seldom used, but more precise generic name. This course was a maddening mixture of well organized and detailed lectures, well meaning but seldom suc- cessful lab experiments and bizarre exams - the answers to which were democratically arrived at by a vote of the Department faculty. Most of the drugs we studied had a reverse effect on the class. The study of digitalis gave us heart failure . . . clextropropoxyphene, a head- ache . . . the barbiturates kept us awake at night . . . ethanol sobered us . . . and the analgesic symposium was a very painful experience. The British film on A Career in Pharmacology and Lipton's dissertation on the clinical effects of thyroid extract proved to be the highlights of the course. We learned to write drug prescriptions and we took a few our- selves. We also learned that a placebo mixed with the power f sugges- tion can be a mighty potent combination. Famacologee was an ex- perience never to be forgotten. During the middle of the ,sophomore year, and while Pathology and Pharmacology were still upon us, we dofted our long white coats and donned our clinical years. Wearing short white coats and with black bags in hand, we walked around percussing, tables, doors, walls and anything within reach. PHYSICAL DIAGNOSIS was the course and it seemed as though we had finally arrived. Inspection, palpation, percus- sion, and auscultation were the order of the day. Dr. Brest's little blue book was a best seller. Hx and Physicals read like War and Peace. OB-GYN entailed the first 500 pages of Eastman and the mechanisms of labor practiced on a dummy. PEDIATRICS was read to us by Dr. Lipshutz. PSYCHIATRY taught us to put out the right signals - so our gait became a little slower and our bearing more dignified - as a physician's should be. It also put us on the defensive and the big ques- tion was: What did he mean by that. And we finally learned the meaning of the word ONCOLOGY. We were impressed by a series of lectures by eminent physicians in a course called MILITARY MEDICINE. PUBLIC HEALTH was a course in medical diction and microbiology, which ended, for some, with two re-exams. MEDICAL PHYSICS also

Page 20 text:

l ' N. ni 1? U 1 an Classroom ix' 4 -J 3 0, n1u'2J..lL v Mfg '52 +5 Hi v-11 rl Xi, The perennial 3rd year student's grievance concerning the difficulty as- sociated with being the 4th man to do a l-lx and PE can best be summed up in the words of Abraham lincoln Smith, a patient with the unfortunate chief complaint of melena: Man, ah dun had fo Ml fingers up ma rectum today an yo ain't about to be the fif - no-o suh!! Forty or so l-lx's and PE's later, medicine was over - the fog was beginning to lift and we were at that dangerous level of knowing little enough to think we might know it all, and not enough to realize that we didn't, Fortunately, this was a rather short-lived phenomenon. JUNIOR SURGERY incised and drained whatever stamina and fortitude we had in us. lt was an experience in physical diagnosis and theory. We read either Christopher, Allen or Gius from cover to cover, attended innumerable tutorials and lectures covering General Surgery, Orthopedics and Fractures, Neurosurgery, Urology, Thoracic-Surgery, ENT, mology, and Anesthesiology. When it was over we knew ia about surgery that we had fnever seen. ' During this course student-attending or student-resident practically non-existent. Work-ups were assigned daily at 25 some phantom resident who scribbled patients' names in alittle X in the 5th floor classroom. lf we went to the OR. we were not even permitted to hold retractors - a pastime we relinquished in our Senior year. Clinics were a little more interesting, unless you ran into who always answered everything with a question. In we learned that in spite of what anyone says, a vibrating cast cut skin. On our first day on JUNIOR OB our egos soared when we were told by Dr. Stein that ours would be the supreme sibility of caring for a patient in labor. We performed heroically - conscientiously monitoring B.P.'s, pulses and Fl-lT's q5-lO minutes. How- ever, our egos rapidly deffervesced to subnormal levels when we discov- ered that in our absence, a student nurse could adequately care for four such patients simultaneously. Our word was always highly respected, for if we desperately at- tempted to indicate to the resident that our patient was about to deliver, the patient invariably did - six hours later. Perennial topics of discussion in the 4th fioor locker room were: al the night rotation schedule, bl the day rotation schedule, cl who's next for a pit drip, dl why do I have to sit with my hand on her belly when she's sleeping and her pains are 27 minutes apart? Sgt. Brown ran a pretty tight ship in Ob Clinic. There we learned special skills such as bimanual palpation of bilaterally enlarged tubes and how to painlessly insert bivalve shoehorns. We also became profi- cient in testing urines for sugar and protein.