A 25 yo man presents at the ER with abrupt, intense pain in the right flank and ipsilateral lower abdomen. In addition to abdominal pains, he also feels pain in the right testicle and has had to urinate frequently and always with pain. Imaging was done to aid in assessment.
Given this information, what diagnosis might you suggest? Explain the symptoms and what is revealed by the imaging. What treatment do you suggest?
My microbiology class is having a special mini-exam on the Tuesday after we come back from Spring Break. This exam will cover chapters 11 and 12 of the Cowen Microbiology text, which is basically ‘how do we kill microbes outside of the body’ and ‘how do we kill microbes inside the body?’ This exam will also have elements taken directly from Exam I presented as an opportunity to retain that material and be sure that we keep these core ideas in mind.
That said, I will be happy to entertain any questions proposed by students (or non-students) on these topics.
My Pathophysiology class is having its first exam coming up soon (February 19th) and it’s time to solicit questions for the exam. Really, this is for my students, however, if non-students want to contribute questions, I’ll entertain those too.
Qualifications to be accepted:
1. Be a well-phrased question with a clear answer (this is helped somewhat by #2)
2. Provide four or five answers (for multiple choice) to the question and indicate which one is correct.
3. Be on topic (i.e. regarding the basic anatomy and physiology of the cardiovascular system, peripheral vascular disease, defects of the heart (congenital), valvular disease, hypertension, or myocardial infarction – other topical questions will be considered, but may appear as extra credit if they were not covered in class)
4. Post here as a reply to this blog entry so that it is visible to others.
I’ve been watching cryptography videos again on Khan Academy. In doing so, I created this puzzle. But don’t worry about it. It’s really hard, even with the hints I provide.
Below are anagrams which all relate to one another in some way.
not a hint
Unscramble the anagrams and tell me what they all have in common.
Anyone can answer (send your answers to jtreml.fscc AT gmail DOT com) , but these anagrams are also hints for my microbiology class’ quiz on chapter 11. I don’t have any prizes I can offer, but if there is sufficient interest, I may offer future games with prizes in the future either here or at 100filmsin100days.wordpress.com, that’s my other blog on film (mostly bad ones).
I’m referring to the 2nd definition in this link
I was worried, but I think things went well for my first day of classes this semester. This Spring I am teaching my standard Microbiology course as well as a new Ecology course that I am using to teach all the things that I have never managed to squeeze into my normal General- and Micro- biology classes.
So far I’m still trying to figure out a way that I can move my Micro class as quickly as possible into Immunology – which is my true love in biology.
In Ecology, we jumped right into the idea of science as a tool for understanding the universe and working on some of the basic mathematics that help us feel comfortable in the conclusions at which we arrive.
To describe this, we invented ‘VitaMax!’- a name so absurd that I thought I was inventing it, but it turns out that it’s a real thing – actually a couple of them. Who knew? Vitamax, the dietary supplement, a multi-vitamin for Cystic Fibrosis patients, a green coffee extract for weight loss, and “A single capsule [that] guarantees firm and lasting erections 45 minutes after being taken.”
(by the way, is it that a single capsule that gets you multiple erections?)
Well, our VitaMax! extends life … or at least that’s what we’re hoping. The data is in and we just need to evaluate whether it meets our strict requirements before getting it on the market.
Here’s the skinny:
VitaMax!® – Live life to the Max!
Without VitaMax, patients have a normal life span.
With VitaMax, patients lived:
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life expectancy with Vita-Max: |
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85 |
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92 |
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90 |
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74 |
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102 |
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90 |
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83 |
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77 |
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76 |
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83 |
10. Thinking as a marketing person, how would you pitch VitaMax to the public (without lying)? Try to make this also a one-sentence statement .
In preparing for a new semester, I’ve been downloading a few free question compilations for the TEAS test. TEAS is the ‘Test of Essential Academic Skills’ that students wishing to enter into nursing programs must take. Since many of my students in both my Biology and Microbiology classes wish to enter nursing programs and are taking required classes for that purpose, I find these questions to be very useful in directing my syllabus creation.
However, today, I found this question amongst the free samples offered at the practicequiz.com website:
Category – Science
Q – What is a term used to describe the subtle energy running through the body? A. The Tao B. The Force C. Chi D. ATP Your answer: – Answer: C – Chi is a term used for the subtle energy that runs through the body.
Chi is specific to Traditional Chinese Medicine. Other terms used are ki, prana and life force.
What am I to think?
I’m not sure that I am comfortable with ‘Chi’ being a legitimate concept being taught in science classes.
Am I wrong to think that the science and medicine taught to students of these disciplines should be objectively verifiable? Is ‘Chi’ a documented phenomenon? Or is this just a word / description that describes some metaphysical concept?
Wikipedia uses the following to define Chi:
“Qi is the central underlying principle in traditional Chinese medicine and martial arts…Elements of the qi concept can also be found in Western popular culture, for example “The Force” in Star Wars.”
Given this loose definition for an equally loose concept, I think “The Force” is an equally reasonable answer to the question as it is posed. And no answer to this question should be acceptable or expected in a serious exam. I certainly hope that this question is an example made up by practicequiz.com, and not one that my students are ever likely to see on a real examination.
See this link for a review of chi, also known as qi or qidong, in medicine.
Mixed Culture
Despite the surfeit of responses to my call for General Biology Test questions earlier this week that I had to wade through (read sarcastically), I thought I would yet again offer the opportunity for anyone (Students!?) to present potential test questions. If there is anyone out there who would like to try their hand at it, please respond here in the comments section with your proposed question(s).
Topics for this exam include:
-Laboratory techniques (primarily microscopy and culturing methods)
-Cell composition/organelles/functions, comparing and contrasting prokaryotes and eukaryotes
-Prokaryotic cell biology
-Eukaryotic cell biology
-Viral biology
-metabolism / flow of energy through living systems
-cell culture / growth patterns / nutrition
I’m in the midst of writing mid-term exams for my general biology students and I’m desperate for more questions. For logistical purposes, a 50 question exam is ideal. I have almost 40 of them in the can and I feel like I’ve covered most of the material pretty well.
– Oh, crap, I just made the last batch of Cookies for the Microbiology Review a bit ‘well-done’ –
Any suggestions out there?
Topics include:
1. Basic cell functions and organelles
2. Enzymes and Energy
3. Plasma Membrane and the Principle of Diffusion
4. Photosynthesis and Cell Respiration
5. Cell Division and Cancer
Any suggestions (including those from my own students) are appreciated. Here’s your chance to write a question that you already know the answer to.
Jaundice
Instead of starting our chapter on Eukaryotic micro-organisms / parasites, we spent much of Thursday’s class discussing the second Chapter of ‘Vaccinated’. This chapter digs in and discusses how a number of vaccines were tested in the children of the Willowbrook institution in New York. We talked about how researchers must balance the (sometimes) competing interests of doing the best experiments to answer a question and looking out for the interests of those who can not look after themselves (the children of Willowbrook, in this case).
This chapter looked at the work of several investigators; Most evaluating vaccines, but one (Krugman) was also doing experiments to investigate how Hepatitis was spread. His work included the infection of a number of children with live virus, but no attempt at protecting them from infection.
This is presented as the most condemnable work of the lot as it presented no potential benefit to the children. In saying this we define the principle by which other work was done, ‘does the study do no intentional harm and does it provide at least some potential benefit to the subjects?’
This principle provides a challenge to doing the (scientifically) ideal experiment outlined below.
A basic, direct vaccine test would divide patients into two groups (vaccinated and unvaccinated) and then challenge half of each group with live virus (or whatever the vaccine is to protect against).
Ideal results:
vaccinated –> unchallenged –> 100% healthy
vaccinated –> challenged –> 100% healthy
unvaccinated –> unchallenged –> 100% healthy
unvaccinated –>challenged –> 100% sick
However, this means that the researcher would be knowingly (assume s/he is not blinded) injecting unprotected patients with live virus – an obvious ethical issue.
In looking through some old work done to investigate how hepatitis is spread, there was a mention of work conducted in just such a manner:
Bellin and Bailet J. Ped 1952
It’s unclear from this reference to a personal communication what, exactly the word ‘volunteer’ means.
I’ll bring up this paper in class the next time we discuss Vaccinated. I have an interesting person connection to it.
Instead of a experimentally controlled challenge, modern vaccine tests (as the other work described in this chapter) use much larger populations chosen because of their ‘at risk’ nature and then we wait and see if there are statistical differences between the infection rates of each group.
DownHouseSoftware 