Wayfaring MD: Missionary Physician
I like to highlight the hilarious in medicine as I write about patients, medical school, residency, medical missions, and whatever else strikes my fancy. Oh yeah, and I like to use GIFs!
Disclaimer:
HIPAA is for reals, folks. All of my "patient stories" have been changed to protect patient privacy. I will change any or all identifiers, including age, location, race/ethnicity, sex, medical history, and quotes.
Anonymous Asks:
wayfaringmd Said:
Wow, such a nerdy question (and I agree, motor proteins are pretty dope). Fortunately, I’m prepared with an equally nerdy answer.
My favorite protein by far is Laminin. I remember learning about it in undergrad and immediately being struck by the connection between its structure and its function. How cool is it that a tiny, invisible protein—a solitary structure made of three entertwined proteins—holds our tissues together? Way before Louie Giglio made a video about it, I was amazed by the fact that this cross, like The Cross, is not only inside me, but it literally keeps me from falling apart.
“15 The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. 16 For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. 17 He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.” Colossians 1:15-17
You can name more amino acids than past presidents.
One of my favorite undergrad professors (whose “fermentation party” during our micro class was amazing) is my school’s Pre-Med Advisor now. Over the years, many of her students have gone on to our college’s medical school, so she has invited us back to speak to the undergrads and give them tips about med school. I have gone every year except last year (stupid clerkships).
So we went last week and sat as a panel in the front of a lecture hall and tried to answer the undergrads’ questions. I liked having 1st-4th years all together because there were questions I could answer that they couldn’t and vice versa.
I figured I’d compile the questions and answers from the other night here. So here is my first in a series of posts with advice to Pre-Meds.
1. What classes should I take to prepare me for Medical School?
You have to take the standard Pre-med classes (Gen Chem, General Bio, Organic Chem, and Physics). For the most part, they’re weeding-out classes, not stuff you’ll actually use much in medicine (although you do need to understand the concepts in order to go on and build on them). You can make it fine in med school with just those because they’re going to teach you everything you need to know once you get there. But if you want to expose yourself to some other classes to make your first year of med school go a little more smoothly, we suggest taking (most highly recommended stuff first):
Biochemistry (1&2)
Genetics
Microbiology
Histology
If your school offers physiology, I would highly recommend taking it, too. I took comparative animal phys cuz that’s all we had, and physiology still kicked my butt.
**Note that Anatomy is not on this list. You’ll learn anatomy in med school with everyone else. It’s really not that hard and you don’t really need early exposure to it to do well.
2. Am I at a disadvantage if I didn’t major in a hard science?
NO. In my class we have people who majored in Spanish, Anthropology, History, Accounting, Business, and Sports Medicine/Kinesiology. They have all done just fine. Like I said in number 1, as long as you have the basic pre-med classes, you really are on a level playing field with everyone else. Being a science major might have held the slightest advantage while we were studying biochemistry and genetics, but after that, everyone’s even.
A non-science major might be a slight advantage when you’re applying to med school. Schools like diversity, and your major might be a big talking point in your interview.
And if you are a science major, don’t fret that either. I majored in Biology and had minors in Chemistry and Photography. I picked the photography minor because I was interested in it and because I didn’t want to be all science. And my interviewer ended up asking to see some of my photography work. It was something the interviewer could remember about me that stuck out from the crowd. Always try to have something like that.
Upcoming Questions:
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Anonymous Asks:
wayfaringmd Said:
ok, if you meant kerbs (as in curb, as in a reference to this post), then HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
If you meant Krebs, ignore my joke and read on.
SCIENCE
So to get the Krebs cycle you need to know that it’s part of the whole process of cellular respiration. If you had asked me this about 3 years ago, I could have written you a novel. I’m going to try for a paragraph now.
First you got glycolysis, which takes place in the cytoplasm of the cell. Take glucose, a 6 Carbon molecule, and break it into 2 pyruvates (3 carbons)to produce a net of 2 ATPs.
Then you gotta break down your pyruvates into 2 CO2’s per 1 pyruvate molecule. That’s where the Krebs cycle comes in. First you remove 1 carbon and an electron to produce AcetylCoA and NADH. The AcetylCoA enters the Kreb’s cycle (AKA Citric acid cycle).
Think of all the players in the Krebs cycle as carbon carriers. The 2C AcetylCoA hops on the back of a 4C oxaloacetate and becomes citrate, which is then converted to isocitrate. They take 1 pit stop and drop off a Carbon, becoming alpha-ketoglutarate and then drop off another carbon to become succinyl CoA. So now we’re back to 4 carbons, but to be able to break down another pyruvate we have to change the succinylCoA back to oxaloacetate, which is what happens in the remaining steps.
Rinse, lather, repeat.
In total, 1 molecule of glucose makes 6 NADH2+, 2 FADH2, and 2 ATP. The NADH and FADH carry electrons to the electron transport chain, which power an H+ pump that creates an H+ gradient that makes a free energy potential to do work in the cell.
The players in the Krebs cycle don’t just play in the Krebs cycle. They are all used in other metabolic processes in the body and are freely interchanged back and forth between reactions. I used to have a big poster in my room of all the body’s major metabolic reactions and how they are all connected. And what scares me most is that I understood it and could explain it. I could probably eek through it now, but it would be rough.
Still got it.
Hope this sort of answers your question. If you have a more specific question, let me know. And if you were just joking, HAHAHA and joke’s on me for writing this long response.
mad-bad-and-dangerous-to-know:
EPIC!
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!111111111111
BAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! So funny on so many levels.
(via wordsthatididntsay)
No, I did not make this madness. A classmate of mine did. But I sho nuff printed it out and hung it on my wall. For those who care, this is what we call “The Big Picture”. It’s how glycolysis (glucose breakdown to pyruvate), gluconeogenesis (making glucose from pyruvate), glycogenisis (making glycogen from glucose), glycogenolysis (breaking down glycogen into glucose), the TCA cycle (making energy for the electron transport chain), fatty acid production and degradation, ketone body formation, and the electron transport chain (making energy for you!)all interact with each other. It’s intense. And I have to memorize it. yay.
As of now, I’ve got glycolysis and gluconeogenesis down. maybe a little TCA. eek. and yet I still take time to update this blog. Hmmmmm….
P.S. How awesome was the weather today? Wonderful temperature, no overwhelming sun to heat up my car.
No picture today. Just been studying non-stop. And I go through these periods where I feel really good about my knowledge, like yesterday when I taught histology to 3 of my classmates. But then I have days like today, where I’m so proud because I think I know the mechanism of a herpes viral infection, and my roommate adds in 20 “don’t forget this”s as I go through it. I have learned that I am not detail oriented when I read a textbook. Details only stick with me when they’re in picture form. Which is probably why I’m good at histology and horrible at biochemistry.
