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Doctor, Doctor! ‘Medical school' bridges knowledge gap By George
Schwarz So, your doctor is doing a physical exam on you and listens to your heart with his stethoscope. Or, he looks in your ears, nose and throat. It's pretty obvious when he does those things, but what's up with that funny tapping on your chest and torso; or, looking into your eyes? If you'd gone to community medical school at Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center School of Medicine last week, you'd know the hows and whys of the physical exam. Dr. Steven Berk, dean of the medical school, returned to Amarillo to be part of the program that introduced members of the public to a more detailed view of medicine, with medical student Dean Xu serving as guinea pig. The history and physical exam are important and lead to choosing the right laboratory tests, said Berk, who is an internal medicine specialist and infectious disease specialist. "We may get all the wrong answers we're not looking for" without good preliminary information, he said. Berk spent more than an hour going through the examination, explaining what each of the organ systems examinations was about. The sequence was general observation, hands and nails, vital signs, eyes, ear, nose, mouth and tongue, throat, neck, chest, chest and lung sounds, heart, abdomen, and neurological examination. Berk explained the need for the more intimate exams. Before Berk's presentation, representatives from Amarillo College's Respiratory Therapy Program and Texas Tech University's School of Pharmacy conducted screening for lung capacity, blood pressure and blood sugar. The Health Sciences Center Library staff provided guidance on getting online information from the National Library of Medicine. Several members of the public worked their way through the screening, with Pat Carroll, who lives at Craig Methodist Retirement Center, saying he thought the topics were interesting. "It sounded like a good series of lectures and thought it could benefit us," Carroll said. "We want to present a series of topics, presentations, that are timely, exciting medical topics to educate the community because some of these things will affect theirs lives and the lives of their loved ones," said Dr. Richard Jordan, regional dean of the medical school. A group of medical and non-medical people brainstormed ideas, and came up with topics that would be interesting and not too complex, he said. One thought behind the series of lectures was to interest young people who might consider a health care career, older people dealing with the issues of aging and adults who might be dealing with these problems with their parents and themselves, he added. Future topics for sessions on the first Thursday of each month, except December, are: E-mail
comments about this story Posted: Oct. 9, 2008 |
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