USC School of Medicine - Asklepiad Yearbook (Los Angeles, CA)

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L. to R. Front: Ross, Scwab, Shaw Back: Smith, Roberts, Salick L. to R. Front: Spruce, Stahler, Stone Back: Sullivan, Tager, Unguez L. to R. Front: Williams, Wittesch, Zlatnlck Back: Wilson, Woerner To extend the narration into the second semester will be more difficult — principally because the author is not a soothsayer, and secondly because her poetic inspiration is failing. One can meet neuranatomy at eight on Monday and Friday in two alternative manners: either with the enthusi- asm of being challenged by an impossible quest or with the desire to have seen the human brain permanently staunched at the fish level of the phylogenetic tree. Generally, how- ever, the latter feeling overcomes the former, especially when one is faced with the complex mass of tracts, nuclei, pathways etc. which on cord X-section slides are sufficiently homogenized into an obscure mass to cause a lesion in every student ' s memory. Biochemistry lecture verified the author ' s prediction that the wo rse was to come. It is with dreadful anticipation that one awaits the revelation of board after board of scrawled hierogliphics, (otherwise known as formulas), which demon- strates from all facets that the intricacies of Biochemistry were never designed to elucidate the average medical stu- dent. To compensate for the lecture and to prevent the de- partment from having a guilty conscience, a laboratory course was established, in which a student needs to be profficient in only three respects: to be able to read and obey instructions without questioning, to be skilled in removing fluid from a beaker with a pipette and pouring it into a testube, and to be adept in using the Klett. But the dearest remembrances of lab will be those occasions when the professor addresses the dignified freshmen as now listen children. There is no department more concerned with the student ' s well being than Physiology, which has attempted to allev iate the tension and frustration one experiences while awaiting for the results of exams by revolutionizing the grading sys- tem and having a checkmark or a review be on indicatory measure of progress. (In the meantime one dwells in dis- illusionment and is shocked to find himself failing at the end of the semester by a checkmark.) Besides excelling as the class in which experiments invariably work out when no one is looking. Physiology specializes in confronting students with such dramatic facts as the marvellously balanced and regu- lated systems of the hemo sapiens can be reduced to nothing but a bag of salt water. There is much more to tell, but for fear of arousing the wrath of the editor-in-chief by exceeding the allotted space in the annual for the freshmen, the author is forced to conclude. Those characteristics that make up a freshman class: the fresh greeness of inexperience, the carefree laughter, the foolish pranks, the enthusiasm in being challenged — event- ually will dissipate with time, but as for now, they merge into making the freshman year one of the most enjoyable and unforgettable moments in every medical student ' s life. Borina Dramov

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SOPHOMORES After the decades filled with the promise of next year, the new school, next year has finally arrived. The didactic is joined with the clinical — about a leaking reflection pool. With the handing out of first semester schedules, the brill- ance of new faculty member was quite apparent. Most of the courses were under the tutelage of McKibbon. McKibbon turned out to be a building which changes its name to Mudd in the vicinity to the elevators. These three verticle shafts still offer memories to many, of scenic rides to the sixth floor with milk stops on the way. The new building is provided with desks for study, lockers for books and microscope, but lacks the needed felt-topped tables for card playing. Within this new edifice is a scientific marvel of engineering genius — air conditioning. With a cer- tain mechanical uncanniness, warm air was spewed out in September and, with the advent of blustry October, the auditorium became a testing ground for Artie explorers. However the building was erected with the thought of teaching and there were, of necessity, classes. Rotate the workers and paint all things red dangerous were found to be the keys in solving the Public Health Menace. The insidious advance of psychiatry into all phases of medicine was felt here too, where the psychoanalysis of chairs was the problem for more than one morning. Psychiatry had a charm all of its own — somewhat that of a slightly disreputable quiz program with its weekly We haven ' t met before this morning, have we? . Punctuality and musical microphones (try mine) were but brief touches of humor as we sought to fathom the mind and behavior pat- terns. Unfortunately, too many of us found short terse de- scriptions of ourselves in the handouts. From the proper mode of serum sterilization to an esoteric disease of children in a Brooklyn hospital, ran the subject matter of Microbiology. In this course, that was taught as much in the.halls as in the lecture room, the examination was truely a portion of the teaching program. In the great post- test debates, answers to disputed questions were supported with fanatical zeal. The mundane desire for additional points was lost as many a half-forgotten reference or dust-covered text provided additional ammunition for the fray. Pathology was devoted to the differentiation of diseases characterized by fever, chills, rash, and malaise from those whose major clinical picture was malaise, rash, fever, and chills. These of course, had to be kept separate from those diseases which present a pattern of chills, malaise, rash, and fever. Pathology was a segregated course with the students in laboratory and the faculty in the coffee shop. The ex- aminations, also, were a learning experience, with many students seeing Aschoff nodules, for the first time, in the syphilitic aneurysm. Written questions probed the hidden recesses of medical knowledge: List skin appendages, Dis- cuss the clinical and pathological manifestations of Upper New South Wales Shaggy Sheep Disease in dogs. L. to R. Bottom: Hinshaw, Grayson Top: Gerberg, Hodosh, Dodds The lack of blueprints for the 1903 Klett proved to be a serious disadvantage in the Laboratory Diagnosis course. It was soon found that a perfect knowledge of the percentages of cells found in bone marrow studies of white males was inadequate for answering those questions based on oriental female infants. The importance of the relative diameter of Klett and Lee-White tubes could not be emphasized enough in the dorkened lecture room. Here at last, however, was a course that minimized understanding and asked that it be replaced with rote memory. Physical Diagnosis is the type of program that one thinks of immediately when one thinks of medical school. This was a course that we had all expected and, expecting, enjoyed. From the hours of didactics to practical application in the wards, we at last found a reason for our basic science courses. Here was the course that unified our curriculum and gave it a working value. With the start of the second semester, the warm clear days cried out for some of the free time that was so plentiful during the first months. Where to now? could with equanimity and assurance usually be answered by Pharmacology lecture . The ex- travagance of lecture time devoted to the uses of drugs and the body responses was matched solely by the capable staff. In those short hours when there were no pharmacology lectures there was lunch and a raft of survey and orientation lectures. Here it was learned that bacteria did other things than grow on agar plates in Microbiology. Murmurs and thrills and heaves could form a pattern of a pathology which was readily identifiable — especially if one had many years of experience. Now, as the last of the basic science years closed, we look across the street toward those years devoted mainly to the clinical, a little more aware of what we don ' t know than of what we do. We are able to appreciate that medicine is not taught in books or lectures, only individual courses are. Medicine is, perhaps, the synthesis of what we learn and of what we reason. It becomes more of an art and less of a science. MYRA FEFFER PHILIP CITRON