I love my major.

according to Dr. Clemente, my career – along with that of 40 other physician assistants – started this morning. now it’s not just about getting the grades. it’s about being prepared to help whoever needs it, and some may need it desperately. after a thoroughly inspirational lecture on the responsibilities and privileges of providing healthcare, Dr. Clemente led the lot of us over the hallowed threshold of The Lab where we spent the next three hours assembling plastic skeletons and then starting our osteology project. by the end of september, we are to identify, describe, and remember all the characteristics, processes, points, slopes, and parts of each bone in the human body. this morning we got through the scapula, clavicle, humerus, radius, ulna, wrist and hand. (the scapula alone is proud possessor of a costal and a dorsal surface, a superior and an inferior angle, a lateral, a ventral, and a superior border, an infraspinous, a supraspinous, and a subscapular fossa, an infraglenoid tubercle, a coracoid and an acromion process, a glenoid cavity, a spino-glenoid and a scapular notch, and a spine.) the best part is we’re working in teams of six with stacks of anatomy atlases piled up on both sides, finding the part of the bone in question, feeling it, flipping it, holding it up to our bodies and chattering away about medial and lateral sides and distal and proximal ends like kids who have just learned a couple words in Spanish. it makes sense. my favourite part is that good old gumberg (our library) has four boxes of plastic skeletons on reserve, so any time we want we can get going on the vertebrae.

even my communication and professional civility class is cause for rejoicing. it’s all geared toward communication between healthcare professionals, and then between PAs and varying kinds of patients. and communication is essential. i guess that’s what makes me so excited: this is all essential. i was so tired of busywork. just yesterday i was marveling at how nick could spend five hours at a stretch practicing the organ — well, this weekend i might match him, minute for minute, poring over a pile of bones. ooooh! i’m so excited!!!