Right back where we started from

California in a week. And I can't wait.

I have half a mind to stay there and not come back.

How to touch a girl

This is a speculum.

(From Wikipedia: Vaginal specula were used by the Romans, and speculum artifacts have been found in Pompeii. A vaginal speculum, developed by J. Marion Sims, consists of a hollow cylinder with a rounded end that is divided into two hinged parts, somewhat like the beak of a duck. The speculum is inserted into the vagina to dilate it for examination of the vagina and cervix.)

This is a confused med student.

(and that confused med student would be me, if you changed the left bubble to: "to inspect the cervix and obtain samples for a pap smear, one inserts a speculum into the vagina, click open the speculum down three slots, and then obtain cell samples from the OS by using a cottom swab to sweep the area now visible," and the right bubble to "Holy %($)%$ of $*#$, I'm gonna do %$%#%$ what?!")

Michelle - speculum. Speculum - Michelle.


Speculum, meet vagina.
[Cue Michelle's anxiety levels to sky-rocket.]




Hi Mom. Do you need a pap smear too?

Bent

They say you should do something new every day.

On Friday, I scalped my cadaver, and sawed his skull open. On Monday, I sliced an eyeball in half. Today, I performed a male urogenital exam.

In other words, I stuck my fingers up a stranger's butt and felt his prostate.

Needless to say, it was quite possibly the most horrifying experience of my life. Yes, more horrifying than the scalping.

Our preceptors tried to ease us into it. First they showed us a video, illustrating what we would be doing. I, along with the rest of my college, giggled through it, smirking every time the doctor in the video said penis. Or shaft. Or feces. And then at the end, when our instructor promised us cookies at the end of the day, our dirty minds were all apparently in the same gutter, and we all burst out laughing. Hi, we're the future doctors of America.

Then, they had models of penises and buttholes - some with lumps and hernias, and others that were deemed "normal." We rotated through the stations, as we were taught correct ways of palpating and inspecting. And all I could think of was how scandalized my mother would be if she could see me playing with a dildo and other sex-store-bought toys.

You'd think that I'd be desensitized to the whole process by the time we had to meet our patient instructor. I wasn't. Split up into a group with three other students, I walked into the room and nervously started playing with my hands, trying not to think about what they would be doing in just a couple of minutes. Of course, all my nervous tics caught my patient instructor's attention.

"Okay, you're first!"

Crap. I should have paid more attention to that video.

Luckily, he walked me through the exam, guiding my hands to places they've never been before, and never want to be again. Retracting the foreskin. Palpating the penis. Pinching the scrotal sac to find the spermatic cord. Spreading the buttocks and inserting a finger up into the anus. And then, before I knew it, it was all over.

True, there were some mishaps along the way. I might have mistaken his epididymis for his spermatic cord and pinched a little too hard - which apparently is akin to kicking a guy in the balls - and I might have inserted my finger without warning, and my face might have been as red as a tomato the whole time, but I didn't care. I was done.

I quickly de-gloved and walked back into the holding room, where the dean of medical education was giving a tour to some benefactors. The holding room. Where all the aforementioned models were. Two members of the group started laughing, and our dean quickly ushered them out the door.

Good to know that even adults still find it amusing.

And hee hee. I said members.

Hi, I'm Michelle, and I'm definitely not mature enough for med school.