Round two...

Two days in and half way done! The anxiety has settled and I am feeling focused. I think we make things worse than they really are when the stakes are high. There is a lot to lose so we tend to take things more serious and even become anxious. I know I am not alone when I say that this anxiety can have an effect on performance.

This morning consisted of a final exam which was unlike any exam we've had. It consisted of deciphering a page of type-written information and placing it into history, physical exam and patient management paperwork. We will be mastering this paperwork by the time we get done with school because it is used daily in the clinic. However, the first time you are pushed to use the forms can be a bit daunting. I spent 75 minutes transferring the data from our 1 page document of information to the forms. It was harder than I thought it would be.

Later we had an extremity adjusting final. This consisted of 8 adjustments involving the shoulder, elbow, wrist, clavicle, hip, knee, ankle and foot. Many reading this will probably be flabbergasted to learn we chiropractors adjust these joints. This is a good thing because it is highly applicable to the field of minor orthopedics and prevention and it should be known that chiropractors are top notch musculoskeletal specialists and not just spinal specialists.

We finished the day with our lecture final in cervical adjusting. This consisted of 50 multiple choice/true-false questions. I thought the test was fair and very straight forward. Our biomechanics final which is tomorrow afternoon, will be a whole different story. Dr. Carnes is known for his tricky questioning that seems picky and inapplicable when looking at things from afar. The details are good to know but he likes to find things students overlook and with a long history of teaching at Western States, he has stockpiled an arsenal of mind draining weaponry.

At noon tomorrow we have a physical diagnosis final which will be over the neurological exam, dizziness, vertigo, imbalance and nystagmus. As a side note, when I was Dr. Tweedt's assistant in Boise before DC school, we had a patient with peripheral nystagmus. Her eyes would rapidly twitch when her head was rotated to the left. Now that I have had some classwork in this area, I understand what was going on and how I might approach her problem. The Epley's maneuver could have been used to move particulates in her left posterior semi-circular canal into the saccule and utricle of the inner ear. This is all theoretical but the procedure has been documented as quite successful for folks with dizziness and associated nystagmus like Dr. Tweedt's patient. I feel proud to know how to approach a problem like this and how to determine the difference between central and peripheral nystagmus.

I need to study some biomechanics and get to bed early tonight. We have an exam tomorrow at noon and one at 4 pm and that is it. Plenty of time remains to prepare for them but one will be tricky.

All for now