stray scribbles ~ opthalmology

Well, guess i should start with the anatomy of the eye as an intro.

© University of Pennsylvania Health System

Parts of the Eye

Gross Anatomy
¤ Cornea - transparent, anterior tough outer coat of the eye
¤ Sclera - opaque, posterior part of the outer coat. site of extraocular mm attachments. optic nerve leaves through cribriform plate.
¤ Limbus - junction between the sclera and the cornea.
¤ Ciliary Body - contains smooth ciliary mm (contracts to change lens shape and enable focusing). provides attachment for the iris. epithelium secretes aqueous humor and maintains ocular pressure. only has parasympathethic innervation.
¤ Iris - comprises of a smooth dilator mm (sympathetic innervation) and a sphincter mm (parasympathetic innervation) thta is attached peripherally to the anterior portion of the ciliary body
¤ Lens - comprises of an outer collagenous capsule, supported by zonular fibres running between lens capsule and ciliary body
¤ Trabecular Meshwork - meshwork of trabecular cells and collagen beams lining the angle formed by the iris and cornea (iridocorneal angle) overlying Schlemm's Canal, which conducts aqueous humor from anterior chamber into venous system to permit drainage.
¤ Conjunctiva - reflection of the sclera onto the underside of the upper and lower eyelids. is separated by a connective tissue layer (Tenon's capsule) from the sclera.

» Note the visual axis and how light falls directly on the fovea, not the optic disc/nerve (which is located medially).

stray scribbles ~ epidemiology

Epidemiology is often called the science of public health. It is described as the study of the distribution and determinants of disease risk in human populations. Epidemiologists study a diverse range of health conditions as well as the impact that various exposures have on the manifestation of disease.

© American College of Epidemiolgy

The Terminology

¤ Confidence Intervals
¤ Confounders
¤ Relative Risk
¤ Sample Size

Applications

Study Types 101
The most common types are as follows:

¤ Cohort Studies
¤ Case-Controlled Studies
¤ Meta-analysis

Reassuring Resources

¤ Basic Questions on Epidemiology

changes.. for the better or worse?

stumbled onto this article a while back and thought i'd dig it out after letting the link sit in my bookmarks folder for such a long time. tho it's a bit outdated (it hails from 1998), it still makes an interesting read.

On the brink of the new millennium, we are beset by change -- social, technological, scientific, economic; the list continues. These changes have affected all areas of life, including medicine, and the medical schools have had to respond. The past year has also seen new Deans at eight of Australia's 10 medical schools. We spoke to these eight Deans and to their two longer-serving colleagues to find what has been happening in medical education, and their visions for the future.

Full article is @eMJA: Lawson et al, A sea change in Australian medical education

the trend seems to be moving towards graduate entries into med schools and well, i'm more in favor of the move only because it wouldn't affect me anyway. specialized courses targeted at people with degrees under their belts are technically at an advantage because the students would have had more life experiences in general compared to school leavers. providing places at the graduate entry level is a bonus to everyone else because it frees up spaces for undergraduate medical courses such as the newcastle course. the downside is that some people may find graduate med school a struggle without proper prerequisites because they didn't undergo pre-med school like their US counterparts...

which leads me to my age old rant about being "americanized"... i have no clue what some of the reasons for this change of entry trends may be for australian med schools but i end up with the dejavu of the singapore education system to a lesser degree. just because an idea seems great doesn't mean that 1) it'll work in your country and 2) it'll work if you try to "customize" it by adopting only snippets

don't get me wrong.. i'm glad the system is changing, i'm glad that the deans are out to seek improvement. 'twas a small gripe that had popped into my head as the thoughts went streaming past. altho changes are good, i wish they'd (ie. the faculty here) would at least plan 2 steps ahead before implementing new cirriculums etc so we wouldn't end up with 5 different assignments due the same week or end up with 5 hour breaks due to miscommunication between the 6th floor peeps and the lecturers... or have the faculty forget we exist like what happened to the 4th years and their pediatric exams this year.. faculty forgot and had to email the papers to gosford. they got them printed out and ready with 5 minutes to go before the exams officially started. d'oh!

*drumroll*

well, one email was all it took to convince me to ditch xanga...and i was so determined just a few hours ago to dedicate xanga to med ramblings and blogger to everything else!

so here i am, setting this site up before i type anymore on xanga ~
for memories' sake... or until xanga decides to delete the blog, here's the old one