ENT ROCKS!

Umn, much better start this time around. The ENT residents are super-nice. Plus we were taught in-depth how to do a basic ear, nose, and throat exam---KEY. Putting speculums up peoples' noses is no big thing unless you can't stop giggling like I did with Dave. You can see SO MUCH with a nasal speculum! And yes, the basic idea behind it is the same as a gynecological speculum---also a part of why I couldn't keep it together, aside from the fact that people look funny when you make their nostrils real wide. I have a whole new appreciation for noses. And ears. And throw in throats too.

I even took 2 histories today, did physical exams, and presented some patients. Practice practice practice. The attending AND resident I worked with all day were super-chill and nice! And now for some lessons and fun facts:

--the "tragus" of your ear is the part that's closest to your face---that little lip of cartilage you'd smoosh down over your ear canal if you were plugging your ears up. "Tragus" means "goat"---and it's called that because old men have hair on it and it makes it look like a goat beard. GOAT BEARD!

--HPV strains can give you papillomas on your voicebox. The complications can range from making you have a hoarse voice to obstructing your entire airway with a mass of "warty lesions." They have to be routinely scraped or lasered off. Babies get them if their mothers have genital warts at the time of birth---one of the reasons why these moms usually get C-sections (although there have been cases where the babies get the "recurrent respiratory papillomatosis" anyway). Although how adults contract it is officially unknown, it is "probable" that it is an STD. That's right---oro-genital contact. So just watch yoself. It's pretty rare, but it's a complication I'd never heard of til now...

--I HEARD AN AORTIC STENOSIS MURMUR!!

--Kids are hard to examine. Period. You gotta be super clever; and even then, sometimes you just gotta get mom to hold their faces and arms down and stick that otoscope in their ears. Some kids are SPLENDID; and some burst into screams the second you look at them with a medical tool in your hand.

I was told that I have lovely eardrums today, a fact that surprised me since as a child and a swimmer-teen I'd had so many ear infections. Just another example of how well the body can heal itself!

Tomorrow---the OR, ENT-style. ;)