In keeping with the purpose of this blog, I want to say a little bit about what each class is like:
Monday
Stats: (1st class of morning) Self explanatory...about formulas to help you figure out statistics for studies you conduct, and help you understand the studies you read so that you know if they have real clinical significance or not. The professor uses power point for teaching, and the exams are open note open book - less calculation, more interpretation type questions. Survivable.
Clinical Conference: (1hr before lunch) Come talk about your clinical experiences, present a patient as a case study, turn in charting paperwork, learn about random things like prescription writing if it turns out that your clinical preceptor wants you to know how right now!
Lunch (and either brown folks group meeting or midwifery check-in)
Primary Care for Midwives: (2 hours) This is the class where you learn about things like asthma, immunizations, ears/eyes/nose/throat, respiratory issues, diabetes, endocrine problems (thyroid, etc), dermatology stuff and anything else you might end up dealing with as a primary care provider. These are the things that midwives often choose whether or not to manage...ie: You can refer most of this out if your patients have access to other services, or if you have FNPs/docs on site at your local clinic, or you can choose to manage a lot of the aforementioned because most of it is clearly within the CNM scope of practice. This class has a lot of case studies, so it's not always straight lecture.
Advanced Patho: (3hrs, into the evening) I keep including the advanced because we also took a patho course last year, and this patho course is a new requirement started last year. (ugh) This course is about the pathophysiology behind diseases. (I know you aren't supposed to use the word in the definition ;o) hmmm...so you learn things like the genetic basis of Downs Syndrome (instead of the signs, symptoms, treatments, etc that you would learn in something like general med surg) You learn all about cells and alterations of cells, immunity, etc. Details, details, details. 3 hours of straight lecture.
Tuesdays
Adv Physical Assessment class: (3hrs starting at 8 friggin AM) The lecture material about how to do a thorough full exam, ie: all that stuff your doctor does like look in your ears, mouth, and eyes with all those nifty tools, and listening to the heart and lungs, and every thing else you can think of. This class also has a lot of history taking and charting lectures. 3 hours of straight lecture.
Lunch 11-12
Physical Assessment Lab: (3hrs, Noon-3) The lab component to the above class, and lucky me I have the actual professor of the lecture portion as a lab professor. (Lucky = sarcastic, she's crazy, and new to the school as of September 1st) We practice all the stuff we just learned 5 minutes ago in a lab that has several beds that are set up like provider's offices are. You pick a partner for the semester and the two of you practice skills for 3 hours on each other. We all already know how I feel about that.
Research: (2 hours, 3:30-5:30) Basically you learn research methods and terminology. Surprisingly, you never read research articles. Isn't that crazy? Maybe it's coming up in the next half of the class, but it seems to me that we should be at least reading some research articles in this class from the very start. This class is set up differently than the other courses as it has a weekly quiz due before class, and every class period you have to get into small groups and work on some little exercise for the attendance credit.
Wednesday
Gynecology: (2hrs, at whatever time they tell us to be there, usually 3-5) This class is what other people probably think we learn all day long. It's how to do a gyn visit (general exams, pelvic exams, pap smears, birth control (or not), STD testing/diagnosing/treatment), dysfunctional uterine bleeding, fibroids, endometriosis, cervical cancer, etc. This is the class for which we also have a clinical rotation every Thursday where do all of the aforementioned.
Fridays we are supposed to be "free," but they always end up scheduling something, like special graduate teaching sessions for you to learn how to do a male genital exam or breast exam, or pelvic exam, etc. Why are midwives learning how to do a male genital exam? Isn't this out of our scope of practice? *sigh* But I try my hardest to keep my Fridays clear, even if it means I do these GTA session with other classes at different times. I need one day during the week to myself, to STUDY. Isn't that crazy, a student who has no time to study, absorb, learn.
