Nerd

I'm fully aware of my nerdiness at this point. There comes a point in time when you just have to learn to embrace it. I mean seriously - there's really no way to get to medical school without being a nerd, if even you are a closet nerd - you're still a nerd.
So, I'm going to share with you my nerdy moment of the day. I was in PBL (problem based learning) - which are small group classes (8-10 students and a facilitator). In these groups we are presented with a case similar to how we would see one in clinic. We first get a page stating the patient's chief complain. For example today: Painless Right Arm Weakness in a 55-yr old woman. Then as a group we try to come up with the differential diagnosis (what we think could be causing the problem). Then we are given another sheet with the patient's history, we narrow down our list of possibilities or move other diagnoses higher on the list etc. Then we receive a page with the physical exam, etc. We go through this process until we figure out the diagnosis and along the way we are given certain questions to look up for the next time we meet to resolve the case. This is one of the ways in which we learn certain diseases.

Anyway - back to my nerdy moment of the day. So while in case today I was reading aloud the physical exam

vital signs: pulse 70, BP 115/76, Respirations 20, Temp 36.6C
Head and Neck: Atraumatic, normocephalic. No scalp tenderness. Tympanic membranes pearly gray bilaterally. Nares patent without exudates or erythema. Conjunctivae clear without injection or scleral icterus. Posterior pharynx clear without erythema, cobblestoning, or exudate. No thyroid masses or enlargement. No lymphadenopathy.

And while I was reading this I was like - wow - I actually understand this. I get what these words mean and to a certain extent what this rules out. It was just this weird heightened sense of awareness of the comfort I felt with these words and the presentation. Most of the words the definition can be figured out if you just break them down into their basic parts, but together it sounds impressive. Medicine truly is another language full of abbreviations. I still have so much of this language left to learn, but its good to know that some stuff has stuck. I can't wait until next year- I feel that when I finally get to see patients my learning curve is going to increase dramatically.