Me in my operating room attire

In a CABG, arteries or veins from elsewhere in the patient’s body are used to graft to the coronary arteries to bypass atherosclerotic narrowings and improve the blood supply to the coronary circulation supplying the myocardium (heart muscle). I watched the PA (physician assistant) cut open the patient’s legs and use a scope to locate and harvest the veins that would be used for grafting. Meanwhile, the cardiothoracic surgeon made an incision in the patient’s chest, cut apart his sternum (breast bone) with a saw, and proceeded to dissect the internal mammary artery from the chest wall to use as a bypass conduit.

I was in awe when I stood at the head of the patient and looked down at his beating heart. I teared up as I witnessed this amazing site and marveled at how advanced technology has become. My face was two feet above his chest, and I had the privilege of watching the surgeon and PA stitch one end of the vein graft to the aorta and the other end to the coronary artery just past the blocked area. The surgeon pointed out to me the area he’d bypassed in the left anterior coronary artery (LAD), and then I watched as he injected blood through the new graft to test the patency. It was amazing to see how the blood is redirected through the vein graft, detouring the blocked or narrowed artery and increasing blood flow to that region of the heart.

Due to the difficulty operating on a beating heart, this part of the operation required that the patient’s heart be stopped. This was achieved by feeding a serum containing a concentrated solution of potassium ions into the coronary artery, which feeds the heart muscle. Significantly increasing potassium in the body causes a defect in the heart’s rhythm and can lead to ceasing of the heart function. Feeding the coronary artery rapidly with a rich potassium solution causes the heart to stop within a few seconds and allows the surgeon to perform the operation on a non-functioning, motionless heart.

This necessitates the usage of cardiopulmonary bypass (CPB). The nurse explained to me that CPB (heart-lung machine) temporarily takes over the function of the heart and lungs during surgery, maintaining the circulation of blood and the oxygen content of the body. CPB can also be used for the induction of total body hypothermia, a state in which the body can be maintained for up to 45 minutes without perfusion (blood flow). If blood flow is stopped at normal body temperature, permanent brain damage normally occurs in three to four minutes and death may follow shortly afterward. This explains why the surgical technicians occasionally threw ice onto the patient’s heart while the surgeon operated on it. They then used CBP to rewarm the patient when his heart was restarted, and the potassium was reduced to a normal level. Once the heart beats normally, the patient can be removed from the CPB machine.

I was impressed by the plethora of tools and supplies that were set out and used for this operation. To prevent the possibility of something disappearing into the patient being operated on, everything was counted repeatedly. Even every piece of gauze used was saved and accounted for until the surgery was complete. At one point the surgical tech notified the surgeon that a piece of gauze was missing; fortunately, after digging around the heart with some forceps, the surgeon located and extracted it. Crisis averted. He used a wire sternotomy suture to close up the sternum, while the PA used sutures to close up the chest and leg wounds. The surgery itself took about four hours.

The following video is a good representation of what I witnessed in the OR today. Do not watch it if you are at all squeamish (ahem, Brent).

Other nursing students with whom I’ve spoken mentioned they became somewhat dizzy, lightheaded, and nauseous from being in the OR. Thankfully I didn’t have issues with any of it. The camaraderie and synergy among the OR staff was great. The atmosphere was relaxed as we listened to Elton John, Lady Gaga, and Eric Clapton–compliments of the surgeon’s iPhone. The entire experience was amazing, and I feel very fortunate that the particular operation I was able to witness was open heart surgery. I have long been fascinated with the intricacy, synergy, and complexity of the human body; to actually see some of this presented in a living human was incredible.

I wasn’t accepted into the nursing program at USM. The number of nursing applicants is increasing substantially everywhere. The academic advisor of nursing at USM informed me that the program is highly competitive; they only accepted 90 applicants for this year. Many were already matriculated, which gave them an edge. She said that the applicants who had already taken many of the courses required in the nursing program also had an advantage. Finally, my 4.0 GPA from last semester probably did not bring up my GPA from Ricks College (now BYU Idaho) quite enough. I’ll always regret that I was so lackadaisical back then. I expect to have a 4.0 again for this past semester, which will boost my GPA for the future.

The news disappointed me, of course. But as it prompted me to consider different options, I saw it as an opportunity to pursue a career in science and research. This is something with which I’ve always been fascinated. Sure, I could see myself as a nurse, making good money and having job opportunities everywhere; however I don’t think I would be truly happy. I could be passionate about science and research, and that is ultimately more fulfilling.

I will probably pursue an undergraduate degree in biology. I am interested in toxicology and pathology (possibly with a forensics focus), marine biology, oceanography, and geology. Brent has been incredibly supportive. I appreciate his love and encouragement, and I know he just wants me to be happy. He is especially excited about marine biology. However, he warned me that if I go into pathology and work in a morgue he will NOT come visit me for lunch. :-)

OK, so I need to narrow it down a bit, but I’m excited to go after my dream.

Liberal education is a vanishing ideal in the contemporary West. The aim of liberal education is to produce people who go on learning after their formal education has ceased; who think, ask questions, and know how to find answers when they need them. People who are better informed and more reflective are more likely to be considerate than those who are – and who are allowed to remain – ignorant, narrow-minded, selfish, and uncivil in the profound sense that characterizes so much human experience now.

Since the No Child Left Behind Act has been instituted, it has been counterproductive. The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 requires public schools to administer a state-wide standardized test annually to all students, holding them accountable and withholding federal funding if they fail to meet requirements. I am infuriated and bewildered by this law.

Many opponents of NCLB, including teachers and parents, do not like the idea of the testing that is provided in NCLB. They claim that “standardized testing, which is the heart of NCLB accountability, is deeply flawed and biased for many reasons, and that stricter teacher qualifications have exacerbated the nationwide teacher shortage, not provided a stronger teaching force.”

Deborah White

The No Child Left Behind Act requires that every year schools show Adequate Yearly Progress. They are required to increase the number of students who meet the state testing standards yearly. Every American public school is required to file a ‘report card’ giving an account of how many students from every school have met the state standards.

The National Assessment of Educational Progress recently reported in what has become known as the National Report Card, that the No Child Left Behind Act has failed to improve public school achievement since its implementation in 2002. Statistics show there has been little improvement in student math performance and almost no improvement in reading. There has been more improvement at the elementary level than there has been at the middle or secondary levels. The act has not reduced the gap that separates low income and students of color from the rest of the school population. The report card implies that many states have set their standards too low and that little has been done to assure all students qualified and experienced teachers.

Megan Fitzpatrick

Gifted students are being overlooked as many gifted services are being eliminated. They are spending more time reviewing for tests and learning how to take them and less time being challenged. Because of NCLB emphasis on achieving proficiency, curricula does not support advanced needs of these students.

After working in education for 20 years as a teacher, coordinator, and professor, I attended my very first parent-teacher conference as a parent. My daughter attended kindergarten, and I was eager to learn about her performance in school. Her teacher had taught kindergarten for more than 20 years and had a magical way of making her class of 22 five-year-olds feel comfortable and happy. When it came time for our conference, I pulled the primary-sized chair up to the primary-sized desk and sat across from the woman who was my daughter’s first teacher. She calmly explained that my daughter was doing just fine in school, and then proceeded to report how my daughter had performed, based on the state standards identified for kindergartners. She told me that my daughter could count to 10 and that by the end of the year, according to the standards, she would be able to count to 100. I quietly asked if she had ever asked my daughter to count to 100 and was told, “No, that standard isn’t expected until spring.” She went on to explain that I had nothing to worry about because my daughter had met all the standards. In other words, the teacher was communicating that she had done her job. Never mind that my daughter had impressive mathematical skills prior to kindergarten. The teacher had not checked out her existing skills or knowledge. Her job was to address the standards as dictated by the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, commonly known as NCLB.

In fact, my daughter could count, add, subtract, and explain fractions and negative numbers among other benchmarks that did not exist in the state standards for kindergartners. She asked me one day, “Would it be a tragedy if a person spent an entire day on the planet and didn’t learn anything new?” I had to agree. As a second grader she continues to ask when she will be given some hard work. However, I wonder how many more years she will still want hard work.

In another school that I visited, the principal had a consultant work with her staff for 2 days on “Strategies for Increasing Your School’s Test Scores.” This consultant explained to a group of concerned inner-city, teachers that they need not worry about the students who scored in the bottom quartile or about the students who scored in the top quartile, because the students in the middle had the power to improve the most. She encouraged the teachers to give these “middle” students the most attention if they wanted to improve their scores. In effect, the district and administration used taxpayer dollars to give the teachers permission not only to leave behind the lowest-scoring children, but also to ignore the highest-scoring students.

Marcia Gentry, Ph.D., associate professor of educational studies and associate director of the Gifted Education Resource Institute, Purdue University.

This is a problem we have been dealing with since my daughters started school. We have been incredibly frustrated with the lack of challenge offered through the education system. Hillary Clinton stated in a rally we attended last year that “we are living in an increasingly personalized, customized world,” and that “education is still an industrial model.” Gentry’s examples provide little hope for students who may need extended, accelerated, or enriched curricula, or for the teachers who might be willing to provide such modifications for their students. NCLB is, in effect, creating a climate of controlled learning and sending a message to administrators, teachers, students, and parents that the school’s job involves teaching to the standards–nothing more and nothing less. When students meet the standards, the schools have met their obligation to “educate.”

Another problem with NCLB is that schools are so concerned with making the grade in math and reading that they are pulling resources away from the arts, physical education and foreign languages to make it happen. But these subjects are vital to the well-rounded student. Art classes, for instance, enhance the creative and innovative thinking that drives entrepreneurs. Studies have found that art classes can help students’ performance in other subjects and could even raise test scores. For instance, dance movement can be used to help a child learn rhythm and meter in reading classes, while singing can enrich the memorization of multiplication tables.

Arizona superintendent of public instruction Tom Horne stated “You cannot run a complex, continent-wide education system through micromanagement by people living in an ivory tower at the Department of Education in Washington.” Perhaps the federal government should step back.

These standardized tests are flawed. We need to consider other factors as to the determining the success of schools, such as graduation rates, turn-over of students going to college, and level of positive community involvement from students. We need to hold the educators responsible. Get rid of teachers’ unions and offer competitive salaries to secure the best teachers.

Perhaps a more appropriate title for the act would be: “No Child Gets Ahead,” “No Child Left Untested,” “All American Children Are Above Average Act,” or “The Act to Help Children Read Gooder.”

Young children need to engage in the process of learning to think and to know how to find and use information when needed. Education involves refining capacities for judgment and evaluation. Learning is only a means to an end – which is understanding – and understanding is the ultimate value in education.

I had my final exams this week.  My final for anatomy and physiology was online.  The professor posted a specified set of dates on which the exam would be available to take.  Yesterday morning I reviewed my textbook a while and then logged in to take my test.  I was horrified to discover the deadline to take the exam was THE DAY BEFORE!  How did I have the wrong dates in my head?  This is a class I must complete before I can get on the wait list for the nursing program.  Needless to say I was a little panicky.

I emailed my professor, pleading for an extra day.  I left voice messages for him and for the administrator of the science department.  After an hour or so of anxiety, I received an email from my professor.  He kindly offered to re-post the class and lab exams on Blackboard for me.  He had to figure out how to re-release them for just one student, and then obviously had to wait for me to take them before he could submit grades for the class.  I am so relieved and so grateful for his generosity!

My psychology professor canceled his final.  He said that he was so impressed with everyone’s papers throughout the semester that he didn’t see any reason for us to take it.  I think perhaps he just didn’t want to grade them; he’s only graded only about one-fourth of our submissions for the class so far, and he’s obviously very behind.  I wouldn’t have minded taking the final if it meant I could have had feedback and grades for my papers.

I’m all through with my finals.  Hooray!  I have a break from school until January 12.  It’s not that I don’t like school (I love to learn), but it will be nice to relax a little and enjoy time with my family.

Algebra begins with an unknown.
To solve the problem, work must be shown.
Parentheses are added to make problems look harder,
but you can still do it, because you are much smarter!

The next day you learn coefficients and terms.
You get confused, and say you’ll have to adjourn.
When you get back, you have a new mission:
properties of numbers, using addition!

Exponents and factors are the new step,
but all of a sudden you came down with strep!
The day you return, you feel like trying
properties of something called multiplying!

Dispersing of candy is done very proud;
little do they know, one was missed in the crowd.
The distributive property was explained very well.
By the blank looks on faces, you could certainly tell!

Equations of numbers were taught left and right,
finding the unknown, which was clean out of sight!
Adding the opposite, or something diverse–
every second that passed, the problem got worse!

Much anguish we just could not avoid,
because the amount of homework really got us annoyed!
Solving more equations, ended the frivolity.
No matter what, there was inequality!

Combining like terms, and variables on each side,
searching absolute values, we looked far and wide.
Positive, negative, then drawing a graph!
By the end of the year, I’ll have had enough math!

~Keri A. Hanson, Learning Algebra

I’ve been dedicating a full day to each of my classes (on the days I’m not working).  I don’t look forward to the day I have to do my Algebra.  Dosage calculations is a breeze, English literature is enjoyable, psychology is interesting; and anatomy and physiology is fascinating.

Algebra, well…let’s just say I’ll be glad when it’s over.  Brent was wicked excited about my taking algebra (he actually enjoys math and is very good at it).  He likes to help me when I’m stuck, which is nice.  As for me, I don’t like putting such an obscene amount of time and effort into something so uninteresting and frustrating.  I thought math was supposed to be rational and straight-forward.  So what’s with imaginary and irrational numbers? Next semester I’m taking statistics.  Now there’s a math class for which I am actually excited!