Weeks 26-30: Pathology, Immunology, Allergy

Pathology wound up to be a quick overview of all the pathology that we won't be really covering in organ systems in second year and focused mainly on inflammation, cancer, and some of the hallmark signs and symptoms of histology that all seems more like a blur. Our teacher, Dr. Grande, also our dean in the medical school did a great job accommodating our needs and taught the block exceptionally well with the help of some upper class men that helped us review and study from resources such as typed lectures, video recorded lectures, and even review podcasts to listen to. It was resource overload, but I appreciated the abundance of resources as opposed to a dearth thereof.

Immunology on the had was a little bit fresh in its organization. Three teacher taught the new course for the first time and they did a great job despite some quirks in the integration of all the materials. The medical school provided us with a textbook that ended up much too elementary and the board review books ended up to be my main text for the class although I wish I had read an immunology textbook proper for the block as it would have solidified my understanding a little better. Immunology was interesting in the sense that there is still so much unknown about the human immune system and in another sense so fascinating that our bodies have such intricate defense systems against the tiniest of organisms - some of which as I found in later in microbiology will drop you dead.

Allergy really was an extension of immunology with IgE and histamine release as the central focus. Interesting how allergy spins off clinically as such a vital differentiation from immunology, but the basic concepts were the same. Clinically I think a lot more people will see allergy as something they have experienced first hand as opposed to immunology that for the most part is passive and less acute than say the rash you got after eating the crab you just got (true story of my 9 year old crabbing experience... I think it was less the crab and more the industrial waste absorbed in the crab that I was allergic to).

The block ended in a most eventful way with a catastrophic internet failure Mayo network wide the day of our NBME (online) shelf exam final. So far our class has had the worst luck with test administration ranging from computer failures, mac incompatibilities, to now this. Who could complain with Dr. Grande though who waived the final and gave us the chance to take it electively after our selective? This was the most refreshing and low stress didactic block by far.

Week 25: Pathology, Immunology, Allergy Begins

So initially I thought we were done for in this block - to say that we were going to learn pathology, immunology, and allergy in six weeks? I would've told you that that was preposterous, until we met Dr. Grande. Dr. Grande is our dean of academic affairs, and I think the wheels and cogs behind our Mayo Medical School six week block curriculum. If there was someone who understood this new teaching paradigm and how it is supposed to be taught it was him. Dr. Grande is also a renal pathologist here and thus chaired not only this block, but also taught us most of the pathology we learned this block. To say the least (retrospectively) this block turned out to be the least stressful and most enjoyable of all our blocks thus far (well the ones in which we were learning some basic science), and it proved to be an effective demonstration of how medical school can be relatively stress-free while you actually learned something! The good news as we learned early on was that the six weeks spent now were only covering general pathology and that the organ specific pathology would be revisited throughout the next year as we move into organ system blocks starting block VII. Another nice change to our curriculum that was intended initially in our heavily didactic blocks was the availability of a free afternoon in which we could actually go study rather than sit in another class until 5:00pm. Dr. Grande made sure that at least three of the five days of the week this block were open, a much needed model that we could've used in histology and anatomy when days went 8 am-5pm (or later) upwards to four out of five days of the week. Since didactic blocks really aren't the most exciting things to blog about (I could just link you to our textbook and have you read it if you really are interested), I'll spend some of the ensuing five more weeks of this block focusing a tad about how each of the pathology, immunology, and allergy components went these six weeks, and a bit about the health behavior and introduction to the patient course that winded up more or less this block with our ability to complete a full physical exam.