Editors note: I had planned on posting this last week, but realized 1/2 the class had not yet taken the lab. I hope by now they have. So all times are relative to last week, not this week.

Technically I’m a week or two early depending on how one counts, but I consider this close enough. Final exams are next week, so I’m not technically done until after Wednesday next week. In the meantime I have the following: yesterday an A&P practical (more on that in a minute), a Bio II Unit 4 exam tomorrow, an A&P Unit 4 exam on Friday, and then next week, both on Wednesday, an exam in each. And this coming weekend I have at least one 12 hour shift, probably two. And in a few hours, I start a 12 hour shift. So this should be an interesting week.

It started with the A&P II practical yesterday. Our practicals are, in my mind, fairly simple. The professor lays out models or pictures on the lab benches, labels 40 parts, and then we enter, pick up a keyword sheet and an answer sheet and fill in the blanks. The focus is knowing the parts of the body and where they are, not necessarily on spelling. Occasionally it can get tricky. Last semester for example while I had focused on pictures showing the muscles of the upper leg, the practical used a model and as a result of where the leg model ended, trying to pick out the pectineus was harder to do than expected. At one point I was holding up two different labeled models doing a “compare and contrast” of labeled muscles to figure it out by the process of elimination. It ultimately worked. (for those who are more curious, because the model didn’t show the origin of the pectineus and the insertion is under other muscles, all I had to go on was a small fan-like piece of it showing at the top of the model.)

Yesterday though was a bit different. We were supposed to cover the urinary system and reproductive system. Honestly, I thought it was pretty easy to study for. But when I walked in, two of the labels confused me. Internally to the kidney are structures known as the minor and major calyxes. Basically minor calyxes drain into major ones. So I’m standing there looking at label number 36 which has two lines on it. I can’t quite tell, but it appears to me that they’re pointing to the minor calyxes. So I put that on the answer sheet.

Then I get to label number 17 (because there are 10 stations and multiple students, you don’t necessarily encounter the labels in order). It’s sitting on top of what appears to be a minor calyx. Now, I know the professor well enough to know he’s not one to try trick questions like having the same body part appear twice on the practical. So I’m stuck. At times like this often I’ll pick up the model and walk over to him to ask. But I didn’t want to pick up two different models and bring them over. For one it would have been a bit unwieldy and for another, it would deprive other students of two stations to work at.

So I tried to reason it out. I figured since station 36 had lines pointing to the minor calyxes, that station 17 must be a major calyx, even though it really looked like it was sitting on top of a minor one.

Anyway, I finished, confident about my answers except those two. I waited outside the classroom to talk to a couple of my other classmates. At least one other admitted the same confusion. This actually made me feel better, that I wasn’t completely confused or misunderstanding the labelling. As we waited for our final classmate to finish up, the professor popped his head out the door. So I asked him which was which. I was impatient. I didn’t want to wait until he corrected them. “Well, the lines on 36 show the flow into the major calyx, so that’s the major one and 17 is the minor.” When I explained my confusion he had a stricken look on his face, went back into the lab and peered at station 36. I saw him quickly pull out his sharpie and update the label. He then came back out, “You’re right, I didn’t actually show the direction and I can see how it would be confusing. Don’t worry, I’ll make sure you all get credit for it.” The other class section has their practical on Thursday, so with the updated labels, I think they’ll do fine.

But now I wish I had asked while taking the practical itself. It might have solved the confusion earlier.

An addendum, turns out by the time he corrected the practical he had forgotten to credit us and I had to go in and get my grade updated.