Podcasts

The server space I use to host my podcasts is being flaky again, so you've probably been having difficulties playing them directly from this website or with downloading using iTunes. The server is a free service that is much abused by the large numbers of you that download gigabytes of audio and video data every month, so we can't complain too much.

I'm trying to move the neuroembryology podcast to Blackboard for Swansea students to access during this revision period, but Blackboard doesn't seem to like this idea. We do have a new server specifically for the School of Medicine, very kindly set up for us by the Library and Information Services department here at the university, which will be the home of all of this sort of content in the future. I'm struggling to get access to it at the moment, though.

I am working to fix the situation, so keep an eye on whichever method you prefer to get the podcasts by. The latest installment, a short, 10 minute chat with Rhiannon before she left us is waiting to be heard by you all.

Evolution caught in the act?

A 20 year experiment appears to have observed the chance development of an evolutionary innovation. 12 populations of E. Coli, derived from a single bacterium, have been cultured separately and observed. Sometime around the 31,500th generation of just one population the bacteria became able to metabolise the citrate in their culture medium. E. coli cannot normally do this.

The lead scientist, Richard Lenski, has regularly taken some of the bacteria from each population and stored them so that he can try to study the bacteria at any point during the study. He can go back in time and analyse (and regrow from frozen) the bacteria before, during and after any mutation. This ability to metabolise citrate seems to have occurred through one or more mutations, and would provide evidence against creationist arguments that this is impossible.

This fascinating work adds yet more evidence to the theory of evolution, and has built upon existing evidence that chance mutations occur (but are more easily recognised when they give negative effects). The work may take a very long time to reproduce given the tiny probability for multiple genetic mutations to occur and give a positive effect upon an organism, but the bacteria stored by Dr Lenski will demonstrate the timeline and how exactly the citrate mutation came about.

Read more at New Scientist.

And much more from Carl Zimmer's blog.

Blount et al., 2008. Historical contingency and the evolution of a key innovation in an experimental population of Escherichia coli. PNAS 105, 23; 7899-7906.

This work is very important. This tiny bacterium is telling us about our place in the universe.

Video podcast

Rhi and I are adding video podcasts to the embryology stream on iTunes. They're teaching core bits of anatomy, instead of embryology, and we start off going over some of the anatomical triangles of the neck in paint.

They're in .m4v format at the moment (MPEG4). I haven't decided how to put them on this website yet, but I will do.

The future of prosthetics?

Take a look at Dean Kamen's new prosthetic arm he and his team have invented. It's a robot arm that replicates the movements allowed by the shoulder, elbow, wrist and hand, and is controlled via the user's muscles elsewhere in the body. Guess why it was nicknamed "Luke".

Wired article.

Scientists image a single HIV particle being born

Freakin' wow. Scientists from Rockerfeller University and the Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center have imaged, in real time, molecules coming together to form an HIV particle. As a cell biologist used to working with bright-field and dark-field microscopes that is trying to get his head around the idea of nanomedicine, that's just freakin' wow.

From the Newswire article on Rockerfeller University's website, "By using a specialized microscope that illuminates only a cell’s surface, they have become the first to see, in real time and in plain view, hundreds of thousands of molecules coming together in a living cell to form a single particle of the virus that has, in less than 25 years, claimed more than 25 million lives: HIV.

"Unlike a classical microscope, which shines light through a whole cell, the technique called total internal reflection microscopy illuminates only the cell’s surface, where HIV assembles.

"By zeroing in at the cell’s surface, the team became the first to document the time it takes for each HIV particle, or virion, to assemble: five to six minutes. “At first, we had no idea whether it would take milliseconds or hours,” says Jouvenet. “We just didn’t know.”

Read the full article here and keep an eye on the university's front page for a link to the video. They've been slashdotted, etc, so the video was offline when I looked.

Google Health

Google are taking patient health information a step further with their new Google Health application. You can access it and create your own Google Health profile from your Google account. You can learn about conditions and import your medical records and history, although at the moment there is only a short list of US participating hospitals, primary care providers and pharmacists. It looks as though it will comment on potential drug interactions based upon the data that you enter for yourself.

Keep an eye on this to see how it develops, and how it may compare with the online part of the NHS Direct service.

Google Health

Podcast

There's a new podcast up on the Medicine page and in the iTunes feed. Rhiannon and I talk about the pharyngeal arches and their roles in development for 28 minutes and 48 seconds. Ish.

Embryology podcast episodes 11 & 12.

Go to the medicine page to get the latest 2 (yes, 2!) podcasts. They are no. 11: the development of the heart, and no. 12: changes to the foetal circulation at birth, with Dr Geraint Morris.

The MP3s are up, the enhanced AACs will appear on iTunes later today.

Podcast 10

Podcast 10 is up on iTunes and on the "Medicine" page. Rhi and I finally got round to talking about the embryology of the cardiovascular system!

This is the first of three cardiovascular development podcasts, and covers the development of blood vessels. Mostly. The second will discuss the development of the heart, and the third will talk about the changes to the cardiovascular system at birth. OK?

Podcast episode 9

A new embryology podcast is up on iTunes (with diagrams) and on the medicine page. We natter about the development of the male and female reproductive systems for about half an hour.

Easter break

Jack fell off a window sill in his bedroom at Mum and Dad's yesterday (what the hell was he doing on the window sill?), and complained of a sore left wrist. He was very tired anyway, and his wrist was bothering him and he was protecting it, but it wasn't excruciating. He slept very well last night.

This morning he was still unable to supinate his left forearm (painful to try), had a weak grip, and felt pain trying to dorsiflex his wrist. He was still very protective of his wrist, and wouldn't let his left arm drop to his side. Oh dear. Time for a trip to casualty at Cheltenham General Hospital.

Sore wrist.

A+E waiting room. Lots, and lots of waiting.

X-Ray!

The medic gave me a printout. It was a very nice X-ray on PACS, but you can't see much detail here. There's a good break at the distal radius. Do you see it? Follow the edges of the bone on the right and look for the bumps.

Plastered! By this point Jack was quite chuffed. He could go home after lots of hanging around, the scary stuff had turned out to not be scary at all, and he had a cast and a sling to show to Uncle Nick (who is also recovering, from a broken clavicle)!

Embryology podcast no. 8

The 8th embryology podcast from me and Rhiannon, in which we talk about the development of the urinary system, is up in iTunes (enhanced AAC) and on the Medicine page (MP3).

I know, we said we were going to talk about cardiovascular embryology, but Geraint Morris was very keen to take part in some of that. We think that he's worth waiting for, so we did the urinary system first. Rhi has drawn up lots of images if you're listening to/looking at the enhanced podcast from iTunes.

I'm thinking we might have to change the name of the podcast stream, as we're going to run out of embryology topics soon. We've had so many positive comments (thank you all very much) that we're keen to continue this somehow, and probably with some anatomical topics, I guess.

A history of kidney study

Fascinating to me, but maybe less so to medical students, is "The Kidney Through the Ages".

Members of the Italian Society of Neonatology have summarised the major discoveries over the last 2400 years leading to our modern day understanding of kidney structure and function. It's a great list of tales of precocious genius, logical reasoning and occasional plagiarism.

The Kidney Through the Ages.

Podcasts

Sheesh. You really shouldn't listen to your own podcasts several weeks after you recorded them. It's way worse than reading typos in your submitted manuscripts.

Medical abbreviations 'pose risk'

The Medical Defense Union (MDU?) and the BBC commented at the weekend on the problems caused by using abbreviations in patients' notes. Abbreviating drug names and drug doses seems to be particularly bad news, but I say that this goes for anatomy too. When teaching you'll usually find clinicians using far more abbreviations than anatomists. Watch out!

BBC article

Stem cells from human, adult skin

Students have asked me about the ethical difficulties of embryonic stem cell research a number of times in the past, and it's a great question to pose at candidates' interviews. That topic may now have become mute though, as work published by two groups in Science and Cell suggests that you can dedifferentiate your own skin fibroblasts back into a pluripotent stem cell.

Now that's very handy. If you can get your own cells to become stem cells that you can then encourage to become whichever cell type you need to fix an organ or a tissue, then who needs cloning? Or embryonic stem cells? Which rather buggers up science fiction writers and cheers up pro-lifers (although not for long, I'm sure).

The lab work so far has shown that it's technically feasible and more work needs to be done to find a safe method of dedifferentiating human fibroblasts for use in humans. Of course we're all still working in our own areas to find the best ways of getting pluripotent stem cells to differentiate into our favourite cell types, and how then to get them to grow an implant or rebuild damaged tissue. Knowing we could potentially use a patient's own skin cells as a source for future therapies is a great help though.

Science Mag article
BBC article

Gambian Medicine

If you would like to find out more about Higher Education and medicine in The Gambia, plus more about the country itself, try these links:

University of The Gambia
The Royal Victoria Teaching Hospital

Article: Experience of Cuban Faculty in Establishing a Medical School in the Republic of The Gambia

UK Gambians
Health The Gambia
CIA Factbook

Anatomy Teaching

I thought I'd got out of teaching anatomy on Monday, in Swansea at least. Prof. Menendez and the anatomy lecturer here in the Gambian School of Medicine have roped me into teaching the 3rd year students in a 1 and a half hour slot on Monday morning (at about the same time as I would have been teaching the Swansea students). That much teaching would normally take me weeks to prepare for, but I only have the weekend. I'm getting better at winging it these days.

Prof. Menendez (the leading professor in the school) is very enthusiastic about our involvement and it's clear that he and his Cuban team put huge efforts into the training of new doctors here. Much of that training is dependent upon donations of materials and equipment from other countries, including Spain, Holland, Sweden, the UK and many others. Hopefully much of the elearning we've already been developing in Swansea will be directly applicable to the Gambian students (anatomy is anatomy, is anatomy) and we've identified many areas that we can help with.

They've got a better collection of microscopes than we do, but histology plays a more important part of the teaching here and classes are getting larger. There is only one histopathologist in the Gambia.

The histology lab. More microscopes and some decent kit in here. One of the main problems in the Medical School is space, with lecturers sharing offices and some tight space for teaching.

There are no arguments about blackboards vs whiteboards here, and there certainly isn't a digital Blackboard for storing powerpoint lectures. I'll have to practice my chalk skills.

Right, back to work.

P.S. As a side rant, you bastards sending me spam are a real pain in the arse when trying to send and receive email in West Africa! You're slowing down the whole internet!

Arrived

We safely arrived in The Gambia and the hotel after many hours and much tipping of Gambians. The flight was very picturesque, passing south over England, crossing France, the Bay of Biscay, flying over Portugal or Spain, and then north Africa down to Gambia and Banjul.

Today, we met with our Gambian counterparts in a lengthy meeting to introduce each other and get some ideas onto the table, followed by a tour of the Royal Victoria Teaching Hospital to see the facilities and staff (or lack thereof). This further helped our group to form ideas and plans for the rest of the week.

Visiting the teaching hospital.

Puzzling over a burst autoclave.

A wet Banjul.

The front entrance to the Royal Victoria Teaching Hospital, through the mossy meshed windows.

Outside a typical ward.

The neighbouring Gambia Musicians Union has an excellent motto: "Better late than never".

We saw a bit of Banjul, but I nipped back to the hotel to cool off in both the pool and the sea/estuary/river to puzzle out the hotel WiFi. We found the hospital library, which has a number of up-to-date Dell networked computers and a good collection of books, but the internet service provider's bill is currently unpaid so the students cannot access any information on the internet.

Steve has some night maneuvers planned (which is a worry) but these will apparently end in food (which is good). Check the Swansea-Gambia Link website (sgl.swanih.org) for more information about this week's scoping visit to The Gambia.

Clinical Skills Video Podcast

In addition to downloading specially crafted clinical skills training videos from Blackboard (if you're a Swansea University medicine student) you can now access them through iTunes in a format ready for your portable video player. More videos will be released through the teaching year.

Subscribe to the video podcast using iTunes.

Clinical skills videos

The embryology podcasts have been well received, and we're working to add to those, to improve them, and to glitz them up a bit. How would you like to see clinical skills demonstration videos in a podcast format on your iPod (or other popular mp4 player)? The videos are already available on Blackboard to Swansea medical students thanks to some awesome work by the Integrated Clinical Method teaching team, but we could make them more widely accessible, both portability-wise and geographically.

How older siblings stunt growth

A study is suggesting that having an older brother can stunt the growth of younger siblings. My younger brother's about a foot taller than me, so it wouldn't seem to apply to my family. Researchers suggest the trends they observe might be due to uterine factors in second pregnancies, or dilution of time, money or love (see DGR learning outcomes any of you medical students reading this) that parents can invest in children when having more than one.

BBC article.

I've got another jab today.

Vaccines

I'm visiting Banjul, in The Gambia at the end of this month to aid the development of the link between the medical school there and the school here in Swansea. I'll have my elearning and IT hat on for most of the week, with some anatomy teaching and much meeting and greeting of Gambian colleagues mixed in.

So, with any first trip to the African continent come the vaccinations. Last week I had a hepatitis A vaccination, and this lunchtime I had the yellow fever jab, the most painful part of which was in reading the long list of potential side-effects. People have warned me that I'll feel rough afterwards (guaranteed me in some cases) and I'm starting to feel a little ropey. This could, however be psychosomatic or caused by too much Guatemala Elephant.

Talking of psychosomatic, we were discussing the language of anatomy and the term "hypochondriac" in yesterday's anatomy teaching. Firstly, you can see how the word "psychosomatic" is constructed from Greek words if you look at the parts and the web-link - and you'll remember where "somatic" comes from. Secondly, "hypochondriac" is the correct term for a person who tends to be preoccupied by their own health and continually worried about having a serious illness even when reassured by a clinician that they are healthy (rather than "hyperchondriac"). It does relate to the hypochondriac region of the abdomen inferior to the costal cartilages. The Greeks associated many ailments to the movement of the spleen, which lies in the left hypochondriac region. Some time later the term developed its modern meaning.

There's a Wikipedia entry for this, among many other sources on the web, such as this blog by a very open hypochondriac.

Right, typhoid next.

Excercise 'must be tough to work'

Apparently people are confused about exercise and health. I'd go along with that, noticing a large number of large and slow people suddenly appearing outdoors on the cycle paths when the weather becomes pleasant. While a BBC article reports that it is unclear whether one should perform light exercise for half an hour, three times a week or do something more strenuous more often, I'd guess that many people opt for light exercise around three times a year. Sorry, I'm in a cruel mood because I cycled into work in heavy rain this morning and my waterproof trousers are crap.

Recent studies indicate that "to be healthy, you really do need to break into a sweat when you exercise".

The American College of Sports Medicine reports, "People should do at least 30 minutes of moderate exercise five days a week, or 20 minutes of vigorous exercise, like jogging, three days a week".

It is now recommended that weekly exercise "should include vigorous (jogging) and moderate aerobic exercise (a brisk walk), as well as twice-weekly activities, such as weight training, which maintain or increase muscular strength and endurance." Is it all really that hard? I always thought exercise was fun.

BBC article.

Guess the questions

UK Gov boots intelligent design back into 'religious' margins

From The Register:

"The government has announced that it will publish guidance for schools on how creationism and intelligent design relate to science teaching, and has reiterated that it sees no place for either on the science curriculum.

"It has also defined "Intelligent Design", the idea that life is too complex to have arisen without the guiding hand of a greater intelligence, as a religion, along with "creationism".

"It added that it would expect teachers to be able to answer pupil's questions about "creationism, intelligent design, and other religious beliefs" within a scientific framework."

Very sensible.

Full article.

The Institute of Life Science

Next week we move labs (and some offices - but not mine) into the new Institute of Life Science (ILS) building. We got to have a look around it this morning.

In through the rotating doors.

Lots of glass around. Good for keeping an eye on PhD students.

The large atrium lets you shout at people on other floors, which should cut down on emails.

Loads of lab space for future expansion. I had better get some grant applications submitted.

There are some excellent views from the higher floors.

It's not finished yet.

Looking up the atrium, probably from near the entrance to the future Starbucks due to open in here.

Embryology of the pharyngeal arches podcast

A new podcast has been added to iTunes and the medicine page. This is a podcast of the lecture I gave to a small part of the first year on Monday afternoon, and it is the first to be a properly enhanced podcast. That means that if you listen to it using iTunes (or a video iPod) you will see helpful images as I witter on about embryos.

ILS1

The new life science research building at Swansea University is looking almost ready for moving in. The builders have pulled down the 8ft high boarding protecting the site and are replacing it with low steel guard rails so we can actually see around the building. We're moving our lab into the 5th floor in a couple of weeks (of course this coincides with the week my sister gets married for maximum complexity) and much of the research from the Grove building will move across. My office will remain in the main School of Medicine building.

I wonder if this will help focus the research part of my job, or whether it will just feel even further away. I guess I need to make an effort to spend time each week over there, either in the lab doing some of these experiments I'm trying to get on with or at a desk writing. Thinking about it, there will be a Starbucks over there so I guess me and my pay packet will spend quite a bit of time in ILS1.

Anyway, right now I have to get back to second marking essays and preparing Monday's anatomy session before a long teaching meeting this afternoon. I'll work on editing those research papers tomorrow. Or Friday. Or maybe next Tuesday.

NHS 'wastes millions on asthma'

Reported by the BBC:

"Three-quarters of emergency admissions for asthma in England could have been avoided, a report argues.

"The charity Asthma UK said better guidance to help patients manage their conditions could save the NHS in England £43.7 million a year.

"Its study found the rate of emergency admissions for asthma patients varies hugely across England."

BBC article

From the treatment I've seen of my asthma, this is entirely plausible. Different GP surgeries look after their asthmatic patients in different ways, and my new, local surgery is the best I've encountered. They have a systematic approach to investigating your asthma and showed me problems I didn't know I had. A simple treatment has made a large difference to parts of my life, and this treatment has been around for a decade or more.

I've gone from my original GP, who told me that as he had worse patients there was nothing he would do for me, to a practice that are preparing me for my future. That may well have prevented hospital admissions in my dotage.

Hayfever

I always find biology curious - which sounds like a daft thing for me to say as I am clearly a biologist and wouldn't remain so if I didn't find the subject intriguing. My recent real-world example that has piqued my interest, however, is my hayfever.

In biology patterns exist, but I'm also used to seeing (seemingly) random variations that give unexpected, unusual and often unrepeatable observations. This often occurs in either the simplest or the best understood systems. It is strange to me then that very repeatable patterns occur in (what seem to me to be) the more complicated systems.

When I was young I used to suffer from hayfever for long periods of the summer, but as I aged I began to suffer only in discrete periods. The first occurs around my birthday, every year, as it did this year. Even with the supposed changes to the climate affecting our flora, this period occurs reliably year in, year out. People may have commented that such and such a plant flowered very early this year, but the pollen that affects my nose and kicks into action the dribbles via my pterygopalatine ganglion is floating around at the usual period. My mum tells me it is apple tree blossom. So I took antihistamine tablets every day that worked a little less well than last year, and dribbled into a handkerchief for about two weeks. At the end of last week the pollen that was triggering my hayfever ceased to float around and my sneezes stopped. Just like that. No hanky required.

My next bout of hayfever is reliably due in late August. I wonder if my nose will warm me of the impending doom of climate change some years in the future.

Endocrine Embryology Podcast

I recorded a podcast for the endocrine embryology lecture recently, but I've not yet had time to draw images for the enhanced version. It should be available via iTunes and the medicine page soon.

This podcast is a little out of sync with the other lectures in the embryology series. As there is an exam approaching I thought I would make this podcast available now, but I am slowly working on the others. I guess they'll dribble out slowly over the next several months.

Students Sue Anti-Cheating Service

Anti-plagiarism software use is becoming commonplace to ensure that students do not submit other people's work as part of their own. The method of storing submitted essays and comparing with essays submitted in the future poses a potential legal problem.

The Washington Post reports that "Two McLean High School students have launched a court challenge against a California company hired by their school to catch cheaters, claiming the anti-plagiarism service violates copyright laws."

"The lawsuit, filed this week in U.S. District Court in Alexandria, seeks $900,000 in damages from the for-profit service known as Turnitin. The service seeks to root out cheaters by comparing student term papers and essays against a database of more than 22 million student papers as well as online sources and electronic archives of journals. In the process, the student papers are added to the database.

"Turnitin is used by 6,000 institutions in 90 countries, including Harvard and Georgetown universities, company officials have said."

"According to the lawsuit, each of the students obtained a copyright registration for papers they submitted to Turnitin."

Full article link.

Originally seen on Slashdot.

Where's Froggy?

Jack and Kim popped in to work to see me last week. Shortly after this photo was taken Froggy vanished. Again. He must be around here somewhere.

Some women may see 100 million colors, thanks to their genes

Here's a fascinating article about how we see colour. In particular, thanks to extra colour-detecting cones, some women are able to see millions more shades and colours than other people. This would explain a few things in my household.

Article link. (This was linked from slashdot).

Nurses leave NHS for Oz

Although I wrote, "leave NHS", many are unable to start work in the UK after qualifying as nurses because jobs are no longer there.

"According to the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) 3,200 nurses of the 8,000 registering to work abroad want to work Down Under."

BBC article.

Anatomy Teaching: the cruellest cut of all

Some of the GEP students might be interested to see who we saw in London at an anatomy meeting yesterday. They like his DVDs very much.

Lack of bodies for medic training

"A shortage of donor bodies is putting medical teaching at risk, the Royal College of Surgeons has warned."

BBC article.

Podcasts

I'm getting behind with the embryology podcast series. This is mostly because of all the other tasks that I have to prioritise above it, but be encouraged that I've been drawing some images specifically for enhanced versions of future podcasts. They take a while to conceive and draw, and I'm going to have to record audio material almost specifically for them so I have to wait until they're done before I can move on. I think they're quite nice though:

Very, very simple. I've been testing them out on a video iPod and they're legible, but it's tricky to decide what information to include and what to omit. I see this as a long running project likely to take me 12 months or more, so the current batch of first year students should get them all by the time they revise for their IntMB exams.

Degree applicants 'copy from web'

A BBC article claims "Thousands of prospective university students are using the internet to cheat in their applications, analysis by admissions service Ucas reveals."

Importantly UCAS say, "There's a difference between copying, and using the web to get advice on how to write the best personal statement - there's nothing wrong with that."

Back in the lab

Look at me! I'm back in the lab! I need some images to complete a paper I'm about to submit, so I finally get to go into the lab, cut some sections on the cryostat and do a little immunohistochemistry. It feels good, and brings back some good feelings. Oh, the monotony of the post-doc's life. It feels like I'm back in the Cardiff labs and that one of the girls from the group is going to come and remind me that it's time for a coffee break. "Nostalgic cryosectioning"? Google that!

Compare the photo to this entry from 3 and a half years ago.

Flawed Stem Cell Paper Withdrawn

The New Scientist has recently questioned data presented in a Nature paper that described pluripotent cells present in adult bone marrow (link). Clearly a potentially very promising resource, do these cells really have the originally described abilities?

New Scientist article here.

Afternoon nap is good for the heart

A recently completed study says that having regular naps in the middle of the day helps reduce the risk of heart disease.

Right, that's enough evidence for me. Zzzzzzzzzzzzz.

BBC article link.

Stitch Pain: New light on stitch

I often get asked about the cause of the "stitch" pain many people suffer from when running. No-one is entrirely sure of the cause or if there are multiple causes, but a recent study has helped define it.

Sports Injury Bulletin: Stitch pain article.

It appears that most people get a stitch on their right side, around the height of the upper abdomen. That's where my stitch pain occurs (very rarely) and I don't remember ever having a stitch on the opposite side. I think that I've also had pain in my right shoulder at the same time, suggesting to me that my diaphragm is involved. They linked eating a large amount of food within the 2 hours before exercise to the stitch, which also fits my history as I rarely eat much before running. If I do I often feel generally awful.

Polar Bear Swim

Our medicine students raised money for charity today by going for a swim, in fancy dress, in the sea. Bear in mind (pun intended) that it's January and the water's pretty chilly. They called this the Polar Bear Swim. Some of the staff got involved too, notably Phil here in blonde wig and black bikini. It looks as though they were worried more about the fancy dress than about the water. The RNLI were on hand from the lifeboat station across the bay and a film crew were filming to add to today's weather report.

Spotter 1 exam marks

The results from the first anatomy spotter exam are up on the notice board (and on Blackboard, I think). All the first year students were looking rather tired and not particularly over the moon about being back in studies on Monday, at the term's first anatomy session. I hope that when they see the results their spirits lift, as their results were rather excellent. Well done all.

Institute of Life Sciences

The scaffolding is coming down from the new ILS building. This is where it sits, with the School of Medicine on the right and the School of Biological Sciences on the left.

Exam Day

It's exam day today. I would wish all of our first year students good luck, but really I don't want luck to be a factor. I'd much rather that you had all done the work required to understand and store the information you'll need to demonstrate a good to high level of competency. If you see what I mean. Good luck anyway.

Hopefully the exam will not be as tough as many of you were expecting. This exam will be double marked by hand, and the results will not be available until mid-January so relax over Christmas and have a break. After speaking to most of you at yesterday afternoon's revision session many of you seemed to have a high level of understanding of many areas of the anatomy that we have studied.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Term 1 spotter questions

I've added the example musculoskeletal anatomy questions to the term 1 section on the medicine page. Remember that the real exam will not use multiple choice questions.

Term 1 spotter questions

I've been putting together another selection of example online spotter questions for this term's anatomy teaching. Right now 10 questions about the gastrointestinal system are up and will soon be followed by a page of musculoskeletal questions. When they're all done I'll add an announcement to Blackboard.

They are multiple choice questions, and you'll get a score out of 10 at the bottom of the page when you score yourself. The aim is to give you an idea of how much information is staying in your brain after months of learning and weeks of revision. The questions are linked to from the Medicine page on the right hand side.

Bioengineering for bliss

Here's a use for bioengineering that I really hadn't thought of: creating rings from your own bone cells to give to your spouse after exchanging vows.

BBC article link.

Christmas Skeleton

I pooped into the Anatomy Lab this morning and found this. Oi! My poor skeletons suffer like a cat with a toddler. It's a good job they're only plastic!

Enhanced Podcasts

I've uploaded a podcast based upon the last embryology lecture about the development of the musculoskeletal system. Unfortunately I haven't been able to add images to these podcasts in the enhanced format as I have wanted to: I just haven't had enough time. I need to draw the images myself and this just takes too long. It may be something I'll have to add in later years.

Viral Fossil Brought Back to Life

A several million year old human endogenous retrovirus that is now part of our genome has been resuscitated (kind of - it was mostly rebuilt from intelligent guesswork). There's a bit of worry about how such resurrections may endanger the current human race. I'm sure that's the plot of a sci-fi or zombie film, or if not soon will be.

Article link.

Bones photos

I've been taking photos of bones this morning for elearning materials, exams and so on. Greg popped in and this strange photo occurred by happenstance. (He was looking at the skull).

Embryology podcasts

I've added the podcast for the "First 18 days of the embryo" lecture to iTunes and the medicine page. I missed it out by accident thinking I had already created it. Thanks to Eve Bridgeman for the recording.

I want to include images as part of the enhanced podcasts, but I need to draw these myself and have unfortunately had nowhere near enough time to do this. I'll revisit these recordings in the future and add them at some point, and I'll make note of that here.

Embryology lectures

It's difficult (embryology, that is). Both teaching and learning the subject is difficult. As a subject that I am used to, albeit in a rather superficial manner in most areas, it's not easy to know whether I'm getting the key points across or if I'm muddling the ideas. The group of students in the Swansea Graduate Entry Programme are from such a diverse range of backgrounds that it is impossible to treat them all alike (particularly in their first year), so to what level do you cater? Medical students don't really need a huge amount of detailed developmental biology knowledge but the basic processes and concepts are very important, and will help them. Are the lectures too simple, or not simple enough? I suspect that the answer will be different for each student. Am I overly repetitive, or is reviewing ideas helpful? Is the subject matter itself interesting enough, or must it be clinically oriented to hold their attention?

In the last couple of years students have done well in this part of their exams. As to whether I have aided or slowed their understanding, I'm uncertain. I hope the exam results tell the true tale.

Jo and Bradley

I forgot to post this photo of Jo and Bradley. They popped into work a week or so ago.

Sunny Mornings

I really didn't want to come in to work today. We'd had an excellent extended weekend and I was woken by Jack at about 7.15 this morning. I was nice and comfortable at home and Jack was really sad about the idea of me going to work for the day (I'll aim not to work too late this afternoon). By the time I had packed everything I needed for the day I really couldn't muster the energy to get on my bike. It was chilly too, with the suggestion in the air that September starts this week.

Nonetheless, I got on my bike and onto the cyclepath (after an unusual struggle to turn right on the road with car drivers uncertain of their ability to drive properly). The sun was out, the woods were bright and green, and I soon warmed up pedaling easily uphill. As usual, by the time I reached the sea I was feeling much better - awake and brighter. The tide was almost in, and the sea was flat calm. The sky was still blue, so it was very pleasant. I found myself looking forward to getting to my desk and preparing the next few weeks of teaching with a cup of tea.

So far all is going well. I think I must be lucky to enjoy my job, right?

Bat to work

I'm back in work again this week, as we have a week of resit exams for the first years. The first exam that I was involved in today had bats flying round the room half-way through. I hope this isn't a sign of things to come this week. We may have a plague of locusts by Friday.

We very carefully captured the bats. One was very tired, the other very maternal (mother, youth pair?) After reviewing the excellent information on the Bat Conservation Trust's website I decided to keep them safe during today in a cardboard box, and to come back this evening at dusk to release them. I hope this works. The "tired" bat seemed to have recouped some of its energy by the time I took this snap.

Spotter 3

Today is the final anatomy exam of the year, and the last piece of the human structure module for most of our medicine students. Many of them were looking far more nervous than I've seen before. We're examining the anatomy of the head and neck, which can get very detailed and intricate but is a shorter term (and in theory less information) than the other two. On the one hand they may be worried about the minutiae, but on the other they should now know the style and level of difficulty of this type of exam.

Time will tell. I should get them marked within the next couple of days, but then they need to be second marked and all the marks discussed and compiled.

Anatomy Finished

Today was the last anatomy session for the current first years (I think they were quite happy with that). That's it, the teaching is over for another year. I've still got some web-based revision exercises to add to for them before they sit the exam, but they have been taught all the anatomy that they need to know to practice medicine. Quite a milestone.

All they have to do now is prove to me that they've learnt it all by passing their last anatomy exam in 2 weeks time. Good luck!

Dr Bishop et al

Jo and family popped in to the office today. Baby Bradley is doing very well. Great to see them!

Staff v Student Football

Unfortunately I missed the School of Medicine staff vs student football tournament this week. It was billed as the start of a range of tournaments between staff and student groups, so I hope to attend the future games. I wasn't actually planning to play, but I was looking forward to taking lots of action photos. It looks as though there was an excellent turn out, so I'm guessing this will continue strongly particularly as there is a champions' cup for the students to gibe us about.

Oh well, maybe next time. I'm not used to shooting football matches (more usually cyclists, swimmers & runners) so it should be a challenge.

End of term

The 1st year medicine students are approaching the end of term, and the end of their first year. It's a long, tough year, but they have one more teaching week next week, a reading week, and then a week of exams. They have some more work to do after that, but we won't be directly teaching them in lectures. Resit exams will be held in August, and then the new batch start at the beginning of September, so in fact there's little respite for us teachers. We're already preparing for next year.

As a side note, Jo Bishop tells me that her planned return date is 22nd January. The first term of anatomy and all of the exams will be mine to prepare then. I hope I can survive that long!

Royal Visit

The Prince of Wales will be visiting Swansea University at the beginning of next month. He's not interested in the School of Medicine though, more the Institute of Environmental Sustainability.

Full story

Medsoc Summer Ball

Here's a photo of Clive delivering an on-form after dinner speech at last night's Medsoc summer ball. An entertaining evening beside the sea (in true Swansea style) at the Oxwich hotel. Thanks for inviting us lecturers!

GMC

Our regulating body (the General Medical Council) visited today. They're studying our course this year to make sure we're up to scratch and to recommend improvements. Needless to say, we've been building up to today for some time, but in the end didn't really put much on for show, as Thursdays are good clinical teaching days anyway. Reports from those involved have been very positive so far but we need to wait until later in the year for the full, official report. It'll be published online so I'll post a link.

I think we've done a lot in the last three years, and I'd hope that the students of the last two years have taken a lot from it. I've been hearing good reports from clinicians that they've been getting involved with on clinical rotations. I hope we've given them a good base for their last two years of training and for their careers. A good report from the GMC would be very welcome, and very rewarding. It's always nice to be told that you're doing a good job once in a while.