My experience from working at St. Joseph and Mercy Hospitals has helped me immensely. I'm really familiar with vitals and history taking, and that has been the bulk of Clinical Exam class so far. I'm thankful to all the doctors and nurses I've worked with over the years, because they've taught me a lot.
We had another lecture about the history of osteopathic medicine, and it really helped me understand why and how this profession came about. Allopathic medicine was in the "heroic" phase, and the prominent medications of the time were arsenic, mercury, alcohol, etc. George Washington actually died as a result of medical treatment for a SORE THROAT. He was bled to the point of severe anemia, given mercury compounds to purge his bowels, had his skin blistered, etc. Today, it is believed his cause of death was a combination of blood letting, mercury poisoning and dehydration.
Different medical philosophies started springing up. Homeopathic schools, who awarded an MD degree, grew in popularity...because they didn't kill their patients! They believed that the most diluted medications were the most effective. The "strongest" medications were like a drop of "medicine" in an olympic-sized swimming pool. So, they might have even helped some patients by hydrating them, but the important fact here is they did not cause undue harm.
Other philosophies sprung up as well - the Thomsonian movement (which emphasized botanic medicines) gave rise to Eclectic medicine (which emphasized treating symptoms with nutrition and strong, complex medications) and Physiomedical medicine (which used only medicine from plants that grew towards the sun!). All of these types of schools awarded the MD degree! By 1930 legislation had emerged to force them all to convert to allopathic schools or to close.
The reason that osteopathic medicine has survived is because osteopaths shared one important strength with allopaths: a strict adherence to scientific principles. When scientific research brought about new discoveries, allopaths and osteopaths integrated these new findings, whereas the Eclectic and Physiomedical physicians adhered firmly to their traditional beliefs.
An important thing to note here: the medical schools which eventually closed or were swallowed up by the allopaths all awarded MD degrees. Eclectic, Physiomedical and Homeopathic doctors were all running around using their MD degree, even though their education was very different. When the first school of osteopathic medicine formed, they did not want the same degree as all these other doctors. They did not want to be confused with doctors who did not have a strong scientific basis for their education. So this is the basis for creation of the D.O. degree.
Anyway, moving on. Ryan's parents visited for Labor Day weekend and we had a great time. I took two whole days off from studying and had a wonderful time at the beach, dining out, etc. We went to Myakka River State Park and spotted all sorts of wildlife, including a gigantic alligator. He had to be at least 12 feet long, and I couldn't believe how big his head and torso was. It was like seeing a real life monster, but really cool :) I can't wait to go back to that park during the dry season, there are so many hiking trails and activities to do.
I really love Florida. Every day I look around and can't believe how beautiful my surroundings are. There's so much to do here and the weather is gorgeous. It's hard to believe that my friends and family in Buffalo are starting to enjoy fall, and I admit that I'm going to miss fall in Buffalo. I was totally unaware of the seasons changing until I saw a Facebook post about "sweater weather." Down here, I'm more familiar with sweaty weather.
Hope all is well in Buffalo. I won't see the game today, but I'll have my fingers crossed for the Bills. OK, that's another thing I miss - Sundays in Buffalo :)
Squish the fish!
