Rounding at the Hospital: Part Deaux

Hey, everyone!  This is going to be the continuation of my last post because I wanted to keep a lot of the hard science all together and contained.  It's probably going to be pretty short as well, since I am, not to complain, really tired at the moment.  But you probably don't care about that, so on with the post!

First things first, I'm going to embed a video that I thought was interesting:

Dr. Walker sent me the link to this video last weekend.  For those of you who can't or don't want to watch the whole thing (it's pretty long), basically a panel answers question about low-carb diets.  However, there are differences in what this guy says and Dr. Walker's Scottsdale Keto Diet, and that's their stances on unrefined carbs.  This guy says that unrefined carbs, like brown rice and root vegetables (i.e. carrots), are completely fine to eat, and that refined carbs like sugar and white rice are the bad guys.  What I'm doing is quite different, in that I'm not allowed to eat much of any type of carbohydrate, refined or otherwise.  The real debate stems from whether your body can tell the difference between the two.  The answer?  Who knows!  I'll ask Dr. Walker next time I see him.

Maybe not the silent killer?

Alright, moving on to the hospital.  The main thing I've been learning is the different types of drugs that doctors use to treat their patients.  Things get very specific, as obviously each drug has its own effect and pathway of action (if you want to sound smart in front of your friends, this is called "pharmacokinetics."  The more you know!), so it's kind of important to know what they are before you prescribe them to your patients (as long as you want live patients, that is).  Now, since I have not actually been to medical school, where you learn this kind of stuff, I'm just trying to understand what they do and how they work, and not the names yet.

Pictured: me.  That shows me for not going to medical school.

The second thing I'm learning how to do is to look at lab results (like MRIs, x-rays, and surgery dictations) and see what's wrong with the patient in the first place.  As you might imagine, this is really important if you want to diagnose your patient in the first place.  So far, I've seen a couple of MRIs:

Yay, brains!

In one of them, a few doctors (including my dad, incidentally), were looking for the presence of an infected abscess in the neck--if the patient had this, it would have been pretty bad, since those need to be treated immediately.  Turns out she didn't have one, so she was able to be discharged later that week.

I've also been learning how to read medical charts.  I would include a picture of one of Dr. Walker's, but I'm not sure if I'm allowed to, even if it's blank, so I'll check back with him and make sure it's okay, if anyone wants to see it.  Basically, after talking with a patient, there are a couple of categories you need to check: the subjective section is any changes based on the patient's own words; the objective section is any quantifiable data the doctor and lab tests compiles or sees themselves, and the diagnosis and prescriptions section, which lists problems the patient has and suggested treatment options.  At least, the few I've seen did, so I want to see how other charts differ.

That's really it for this week, folks!  I'll let you know anything new or crazy that happens next week, and I'll keep you posted on what I'm learning at the hospital.  Thanks for reading!