Digestive System Part 1

Today's Medical Topic:  Digestive System Part I - If you aren't in my A&P II class you probably won't understand this.

What Are We Looking For:   The difference between the two liver models on our practical exam.

Here is one of the "livers" on our practical.  This one has more parts than the other ones so if you are asking yourself "Which one is more complicated?"  It is this one.  This is the only one that has a right and left hepatic duct.

To remember it correctly place the model of the liver in anatomical position and then rotate it up to see the vessels and what not.  The common hepatic duct on this model is a little confusing so let's clarify.

That little whitish part is actually the common hepatic duct on this model.  It is just a matter of how far up the cut is made.

Lets take a look at the other less complicated model:

You should position and rotate this one the same way and you can see how this one is different.  So basically if it has numbers you can see on it it is the less complicated model.  163 is the cystic duct, 162 is the common hepatic duct, and 165 is the bile duct.

So thats is all I got for tonight.  Enjoy.

Send questions or comments to dudaday@gmail.com

Disclaimer:  I am not a health care provider, any information presented in this blog should not be considered advice it is mearly an outlet to slake my curiosity.  You should always consult your primary medical provider for any concerns or illness.  Unlike Tylenol, I am not approved by the FDA or American Medical Association to treat or provide relief for any ailment.

Teef

Today's Medical Topic:  Teef.  Otherwise known as teeth.

What Are We Looking For:   The main differentiation between different kinds of teeth and how many we have of each.

Ignoring primary dentition, your baby teeth, lets look at permanent dentition. We are sort of looking at that now.  Why sort of?  Because a full set of adult teeth has 32 teef and not 28.  These teeth seem to be missing a couple or two.

That's ok though, I think they are trying to represent an average set of adult teeth which has already had the third molars, AKA the wisdom teeth, extracted.  Very few adults in first world countries have 32 teeth after the age of 25.

Still.  A good formula for remembering teeth is:

This model only has 2 molars but it still works for the most part.  Lets go over what these teeth do.

Incisors:  Adapted for nipping or cutting off pieces of food.

Canines:  Tear and pierce food.

Bicuspids:  Grind and crush food.

Molars:  Crunch, grind, and pulverize the hardest foodstuffs.

You should take care of your teeth, they will serve you with a lifetime of eating awesome food.

Send questions or comments to dudaday@gmail.com

Disclaimer:  I am not a health care provider, any information presented in this blog should not be considered advice it is mearly an outlet to slake my curiosity.  You should always consult your primary medical provider for any concerns or illness.  Unlike Tylenol, I am not approved by the FDA or American Medical Association to treat or provide relief for any ailment.

Upper Respiratory Tract Part II

Today's Medical Topic:  Part II of Places You Shouldn't Put a Crayon

What Are We Looking For:   We are looking for specific identifiable structures in the model not covered in the first section.  Mostly structures of the larynx.  If you are in my A&P II class I am using the in room model thingy.

(Click for big)

Some notes on these structures:

The pharyngeal tonsil is much larger on this model than presented in most books.  I am not sure why.

The palantine tonsil is either covered by some strange representation of soft tissue (yellow stuff) or has been broken off on this model.  Just understand that this is where the palantine tonsil should be.

The vestibular fold and vocal fold are sort of strangely represented.  The white are supposed to be the vocal folds and the red are supposed to be the vestibular folds.  I think what they tried to do was represent the larynx "tube" cut at an oblique angle so that the top of the right and left sides are visible.  Try to look at it like a piece of penne pasta only at not such a steep angle.

 
The cricoid cartilage looks like it is two separate pieces but this is only the case because we are looking at a midsagittal slice of the head.  If the cricoid cartilage wasn't sliced through it would look like this:

So you can only see the most anterior and posterior part of it in the model.

We're done with all the parts you gotta know of the upper respiratory tract for now.  Everything else you need to study is in the book.

Send questions or comments to dudaday@gmail.com

Disclaimer:  I am not a health care provider, any information presented in this blog should not be considered advice it is mearly an outlet to slake my curiosity.  You should always consult your primary medical provider for any concerns or illness.  Unlike Tylenol, I am not approved by the FDA or American Medical Association to treat or provide relief for any ailment.

Upper Respiratory Tract Part I

Today's Medical Topic:  Part I of the Upper Respiratory Tract

What Are We Looking For:  If you are in my A&P II class I am using the in room model thingy.  Do day we are differentiating the regions of the pharynx and the regions of the nasal cavity.  Let's get started.  First up:  The Pharynx

I have color coded the different areas like it is on the book except this is the model.  Or a close up of such.  Yeah, that was exciting.  Let's continue.

Remember, conche are the bigger bumpy things and the meatuses are ridges.  There are three of each.

The nasal vestibule is where your nose gets bigger internally creating the widest part of your nose externally.

The posterior nasal aperture isn't really part of the nasal cavity but I mentioned it in the pharynx so I wanted to point it out.  And yes I know I spelled it wrong on the diagram but I don't want to go back into Photoshop to fix it.

The nostril is...well look if you can't find your nose hole you got problems.  If fact I don't even know how you are reading this blog.  I'll give you a hint though:  It is probably the last place you put your crayon.

Send questions or comments to dudaday@gmail.com

Disclaimer:  I am not a health care provider, any information presented in this blog should not be considered advice it is mearly an outlet to slake my curiosity.  You should always consult your primary medical provider for any concerns or illness.  Unlike Tylenol, I am not approved by the FDA or American Medical Association to treat or provide relief for any ailment.

Gross Anatomy of the Internal Mammalian Heart

Today's Medical Topic:  Gross Anatomy of the Internal Mammalian Heart

What Are We Looking For:  Same thing as last time but now we have sliced the heart in half on a frontal plane.  Keep in mind the correct anatomical terms.  Lets remember our sheepy and human drawing.  I have also added an eye patch to the sheep to give it more character.

First we are going to look at the just the trucuspid and mitrial valves.  I did not get lucky and slice through a semilunar valve so those aren't featured.

Well, I should say it is mostly remnants of the valves.  Also featured here is the large interventricular septum which effectively divides the heart in half.

Here we have everything else I could identify.  I'll leave the looking up what each part is to ya'll that are interested.  Enjoy.

Send questions or comments to dudaday@gmail.com

Disclaimer:  I am not a health care provider, any information presented in this blog should not be considered advice it is mearly an outlet to slake my curiosity.  You should always consult your primary medical provider for any concerns or illness.  Unlike Tylenol, I am not approved by the FDA or American Medical Association to treat or provide relief for any ailment.

Kendra's Blood

Today's Medical Topic:  Is a blood smear slide of my friend Kendra's blood.

What Are We Looking For:  Erythyocytes with holes in them. We will also be discussing why Kendra should be taking an iron supplement.

The smear in question

So not the greatest smear.  Has a few dings.  Not very smooth.  Looks like maybe someone had a seizure while doing it (or maybe passed out) but still, they got the job done.

400x Magnification

Here we have some relatively normal (not from the above slide) red blood cells.  Henceforth known as erythrocytes.  As most of you know an erythrocyte has a bi-concave shape which leads to a disc-like cell with a thin center.  Ideally the center is not super thin and indeed with enough iron in your diet your red cells are just perfectly shaped.

Perfection.

That single iron atom should sit like a jewel in the center of each hemoglobin unit, lending your red cells into that ideal bi-concave shape for optimal oxygen-carrying capacity.  It is a beautiful model of natural geometry.  Each red blood cell contains about 250 million hemoglobin units and can scoop up one billion oxygen molecules in optimal conditions.

However, not everyone can be perfect.  Sometimes, despite our best efforts, we fall a bit short...

400x Donuts

In medical terms, half these erythrocytes "be lookin' like donuts".  And as previously discussed that is not a good thing.  Half the erythrocytes in this case have their oxygen carrying capacity greatly diminished.  You need that iron atom at the center of each heme unit for the perfect cell shape and therefore the O2 carrying capacity.

So probably if whoever's blood sample this is took an iron supplement they would have a lot more energy and maybe also feel better in general.  Just sayin.

Send questions or comments to dudaday@gmail.com

Disclaimer:  I am not a health care provider, any information presented in this blog should not be considered advice it is mearly an outlet to slake my curiosity.  You should always consult your primary medical provider for any concerns or illness.  Unlike Tylenol, I am not approved by the FDA or American Medical Association to treat or provide relief for any ailment.

External Heart Anatomy

Today's Medical Topic:  Gross Anatomy of the External Mammalian Heart

What Are We Looking For:  General landmarks, but most specifically we are trying to identify all the  arteries and veins that we can.  We are looking at two main views.  A ventral/anterior view and a dorsal/posterior view.  Keep in mind that this is a sheep heart so when I use the term "anterior" and "posterior" I am referring to how this heart would look in an upright bipedal mammal like a human.

Keep in mind, however that a sheep heart is not 100% like a human heart but it is very similar.  If you are in my A&P II class, you have already dissected one and these pictures I am using are from our dissections.

So this is the "front" view which is never a good term to use.  The auricles are a little hard to see but you can just see the edges of them.  The only reason the line pointing to the pulmonary trunk is blue is because it overlaps some other lines and I didn't want to confuse anyone.  I am pretty sure I have identified everything correctly on this view.

This is the "back" view which again is a poor term to use.  There is a lot more arteries and veins visible on this side and some of them are tough to identify.  I think I have identified almost everything correctly.

The line pointing to the left pulmonary vein is maybe not the left pulmonary vein but I am not sure what else it would be.  I apparently punched through the heart with a probe and that is not an artery or vein.  The posterior vena cave is actually above that.  To further clarify I took a pic of the same heart with a probe going in the anterior vena cava and exiting the posterior vena cava.

The pulmonary arteries are a little hard to see as well so I have another picture with probes sticking out of both of them.

Posterior/Dorsal View

That is it for now.  Tomorrow we go for internal gross anatomy of the heart.

Send questions or comments to dudaday@gmail.com

Disclaimer:  I am not a health care provider, any information presented in this blog should not be considered advice it is mearly an outlet to slake my curiosity.  You should always consult your primary medical provider for any concerns or illness.  Unlike Tylenol, I am not approved by the FDA or American Medical Association to treat or provide relief for any ailment.