MedEx Day 13 - July 25th, 2018

Today was the 3rd day of the 3rd week of MedEx. To start the day Dr. Rob Morgan, an anesthesiologist, came in and spoke with Tier I about his career. He discussed what a day looks like for an anesthesiologist, and he expounded upon how an anesthesiologist has much variability in their schedule. Dr. Morgan talked first about the history/ word origin of anesthesia which is derived from Greek stems meaning "without" (an) and "sensation" (aesthesis). It first began in the 1840s/ 50s when some Doctors attended a nitrous party, and they saw that when people were under its sedation, they felt no pain. They decided to test it out and thus launched anesthetics which changed medicine. I really enjoyed hearing about anesthetics, and it gave me a greater appreciation for it. Next our group had the opportunity to conduct research on our medical ethics projects. Mine is on Dr. Andrew Wakefield and the MMR Vaccine/ autism controversy. I conducted research on what autism is, and I found out more about how the spectrum of autism works. Also, I got to read Dr. Wakefield's study/ saw that his sample size of 12 was much too small to prove a causal relationship. I learned that the US Supreme Court even ruled on the matter saying that the vaccine is the safest option for kids because there is no evidence to support a causal relationship between the two. During lunch I had the opportunity to speak with one of the Tier I Interns, Madison, about college, med school, and life in general. I thoroughly enjoyed talking to her and learning about college/ majors and getting advice. After lunch, Ms. Donohue, a Greenville Tech hygienist teacher, came and spoke with us about dentistry. I was interested to hear that dentists can tell if one is pregnant or has higher blood pressure by looking at one's mouth. To end the day, all of the interns/ program advisors for MedEx spoke to us and gave us life advice. Excited for tomorrow!