UNC School of Medicine - Tarhealer Yearbook (Chapel Hill, NC)

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IN [LRSO In less than a week of classes, people developed a territorial attach- ment to their corner of 103 Berryhill. A daily routine evolved — the Daily Tar Heel was folded to the crossword puzzle, late comers climbed to their seats or camped on the stairs, familiar hands went up for ques- tions, notebooks hit the floor and Coke cans rolled from the middle of the room down toward the gunners and sleepers in the front. Class expression took the form of colorful commentary from the back rows, primeval screaming during exam answer sessions and an occasional group hiss from the female half of the class. 6

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First year medical school — definitely a year of classes. We started classes a week before anyone else on campus and jumped right into anatomy, biochemistry and cell biology. Each class featured a procession of lecturers, each with his or her own unique approach to the education of medical students. In biochemistry, the diversity of the teachers was reflected in quotes from their lectures. First Dr. Sancar made little jokes then turned to the class with a sly grin to show how funny he found the joke. Fie had useful ideas about learning (“draw in the red arrows — that is an audiovisual thing that is supposed to help you learn’’). From him we learned about NANA (“she used to be a famous exotic dancer”) and beetle sugar (“you know, the kind from sugar beetles”). Next came Dr. Caplow and the eternal question — what is his favorite amino acid? Is it histidine? (“it means a lot to me”). Or methionine? (“I think we’re expecting too much of methionine”). Maybe arginine? (“I’ll spare you the story about the cat and the arginine this year”). His approach to teaching was always unique — “we’ll turn the page cooperatively and read respon- sively from the syllabus and “this is the worst diagram in the world but we’ll orchestrate it like Peter and the Wolf and you’ll see the whole orchestra come together”. And on the subject of mitochondria and pizza, Dr. Caplow’s final words of wisdom — “remember it always hurts in the denominator”. Dr. Morrell began his lectures with “the brain is in the head” and “try to forget what Dr. Sancar told you”. His graphic descriptions added interest to the course — “imagine the garbage men leaving 2% of your garbage in the driveway every week — that’s how cholesterol works”. Next Dr. Chaney taught nutrition and fielded the Student Question of the Year from Steve Somkuti — “Is it true that there were cases of vitamin A toxicity in Eskimos who ate too many polar bear livers?” (“Yes”). Dr. Maness kept the class looking to the front of the room with her fashion sense and micrographia. Dr. Nayfeh obviously took his teaching responsibilities quite seriously; he worried “it is hard to be a good lecturer — I have to have a computer in my head to tell me when to pull down the screen, put on a transparency, put up the screen or write on the board”. He directed our attention — “look at your syllabus not at me or next time I ' ll print the pathway on my face”. And finally, he gave good advice “I think you should take this business of medical school not so seriously”. Histology featured Dr. MacRae on hair — “billions of dollars are spent yearly on HAIR ... to grow it, trim it, cut it, shave it, wave it, curl it, uncurl it, perm it, style it, bleach it, dye it, frost it, frizz it, grease it, tease it, and tweeze it . . . but it still remains just a keratinized downgrowth of the epidermis . Histology lab left students in 51 1 Stumpfed and one student spent his lab time on verbal creativity (“The spleen is great, I guess I’m just a lymphoma- niac” and “I don’t like this bone, epiphysis me off”). For pure entertainment, Anatomy lectures were the best — if you could stay awake from 1 :30 to 2:30. Dr. Henson showed us every aspect and action of his left hand then Dr. Lay showed slides of every aspect of the human body. Dr. Pollitzer used his head as the liver to create the omentum with two handerchiefs. Dr. Grainger created the peritoneal folds of the pelvis with a sheet and student volunteers representing the abdominal wall, uterus and rectum. Dr. Sulik’s pictures of mouse faces were fascinating but her most memorable lecture described “those . . . special . . . senses”. Of course anatomy lab is a once-in-a-lifetime experience (for students). We learned to keep our hands away from classmates’ knives and how to create nerves from fascia (“If it breaks it must not be a nerve”). Chris learned not to leave his Coke on the sink and everyone soon knew not to eat a sandwich after lab. 8