Tortoises:

I just read an article about the giant tortoises which inhabit the Galapagos, those famous islands which inspired Darwin to come up with his theory of evolution. The article describes how one species of tortoise, previously thought to be extinct 150 years ago may still be around. The mapping of the tortoise genome found 30 tortoises on an island which were hybrid between the extinct species and one other. Scientists now believe that the extinct tortoise was simply captured and reintroduced onto a different island where it interbred. If they can find the parents they can restore them to their former island where they played a key role in the “ecological integrity”. I find this very interesting – the use of a DNA forensics to establish which tortoises were descended from which, and also the idea that although these islands are small, and the scientific presence there is huge, we still do not know everything about them. The constant stream of discovery is an amazing career to be involved in and is one of the reasons I’m interested in Medicine – doctors and other scientists are always discovering new and interesting techniques and mechanisms to do with, or that are happening in, the human body. I’m also particularly interested in the Galapagos, as that’s the destination of this year’s biology field trip. I’m extremely excited as this won’t be the standard school tourist-y type trip, because we also get to be involved in some of the research out there – helping monitor the wildlife of the surrounding environment for a few days, and seeing how the data is used should be a real eye opener.

MenCap

When I went to Mencap last week, I was paired with a young boy named S. He has quite severe Autism, and is unable to talk, although he does understand when spoken to. He likes to sing and to listen to things.  I realised as I was playing with him that actually I knew next to nothing about Autism, so I decided to do a little research into his condition. I already knew that there was a link between Asperger’s Syndrome and Autism, but very little else.

  According to the national autistic society “Autism is a lifelong developmental disability that affects how a person communicates with, and relates to, other people. It also affects how they make sense of the world around them.”  They go on to talk about the Autism spectrum – how there is no binary condition, but how it can vary in severity. Some people may have autism, and behave perfectly normally, whereas others may have to depend on carers for the rest of their lives. Autism affects around 1% of the population and has an effect on three main areas of social life – social communication, interaction and imagination.

One sub-division with autism is Aspergers. This is where the individual has all of the symptoms of autism but is often without the learning difficulties or speech difficulties. People with Aspergers syndrome often have a higher or an average IQ score – if any of you watched the TV series Sherlock, he is supposed to have Aspergers.

Autism can result in several things. These include hyper or hypo sensitivity, where an individual responds less to some senses, and more to others, special interests in one particular subject, such as art or music, a “love of routines” where someone might not be able to function if things do not happen as they normally do, and learning difficulties. Learning difficulties is not linked only to school, though there are links to learning disabilities such as dyslexia and dyspraxia, but also to life – some individuals might struggle to learn to perform basic domestic chores like washing or cooking.

There are no cures for autism. It is a lifelong disability. As for causes, not much is known at the moment. There is evidence to support the ideas that it may emerge as the result of a physical problem, and other research which maintains that it has a genetic base. The idea behind it being genetic is that “Most people with autism are probably genetically quite unique, each having their own genetic form of autism”, and that it is the genetic variation which is similar in each individual.

The West Berkshire Mencap is supported by a government fund, which enables all of these wonderful children to get some support and have some fun. It runs play schemes and holiday sessions which enable. However, the fund had recently been considered for cuts. I'd really appreciate it if anyone who reads this could follow the link below and sign to say that they don't support this. Thanks

http://www.Autism.org.uk/about-Autism/Autism-and-asperger-syndrome-an-introduction/what-is-Autism.aspx 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2010/jun/09/autism-study-genetic-causes

http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/save-childrens-activities-at-west-berkshire/ed

Monday 23rd, Chinese New Year

This is the plan I came up with for the evening. Hopefully it will be fun enough to keep their attention, and actually teach them a little too! I have a Chinese style game up my sleeve if it all goes wrong...

Tell beavers about Chinese New Year, zodiac story:

Explain different bases: 

Base 1: Calligraphy of Fú. Explanation: the Chinese believe that some things like the colour red will bring them luck. Others are writing the symbol for luck. This is the symbol for luck, and when you take it home, you can hang it in your windows, upside down, to bring you luck for the rest of the year. Materials needed: red tissue paper and ink, or red paper and paint, paint brushes. I will bring an example of the character they should draw

Base 2: Fireworks. Explanation: at Chinese New Year, everyone sets off fireworks, to scare off the bad spirits, and bring good luck to the rest of the year. We are going to paint some fireworks. Materials: black paper, different colours of paint, straws. They dab paint onto the paper, and then use the straws to blow them into firework shapes and patterns

Base 3: The year of the dragon. Explanation: This year is the Chinese year of the dragon, and a typical Chinese tradition is the dragon dance. We will be making a little dragon, like the one found in the dragon dance. Materials needed: coloured card, brightly coloured tissue, paper scraps, construction paper, 2 popsicle (lolly) sticks, glue.
Instructions:
To make the body:
Cut the construction paper into strips about 1inch wide. Glue two different colour strips together at right angles. Fold one strip over the other, then repeat with the other strip, forming a concertina. Continue until you reach the end of the strips. Glue the ends together and trim off any excess.
To make the head and tail:
Cut two oval shapes from card. Cut a mane, eyes, nose, mouth and other decorations from tissue paper. Glue these to the head and tail.
To assemble your puppet:
Glue one of the popsicle sticks to the tail and glue the body on top. Glue the other popsicle stick to the back of the head and glue these to other end of the body.

Rotate until beavers have done all three bases

Drink and a biscuit

Teach them some Chinese:
Knee how – hello
Knee how ma? How are you

War hen how – I am good

Knee jee-ow shen ma? What is your name?

War jee-ow Squirrel – my name is squirrel

Shin knee-ann koo-aye-leh! – Happy New Year!

Sleeping beavers (How we get them to quieten down before going home)

Scouts

I’m an explorer scout, which is the group for scouts aged between 14 and 18. We do things like camping and walking, but also activities which you can’t do lower down in the organisation – for example, we can go shooting, and organise our own hikes and events, a responsibility which the younger scouts don’t have yet. 

I’m also attached to a beaver colony as a young leader. Beavers are the branch of scouts between the ages of 6-8 and yes, they also include younger girls. I assist the leaders with the games and activities which are organised on a weekly basis, and occasionally I run a game or even a whole evening. My beaver name is Badger, and the two main other leaders are Squirrel and Owl, though there are others in the parent support team. I really look forward to helping at beavers, because they’re a fun loving bunch, and the other members of the leader team are easy to get on with.

I think scouting has a very positive impact on young people as it can help with discipline, independence, confidence, and learning new skills (I'm sure there'll be a situation one day where I need to tie a bowline!) It's also useful for keeping young people off the streets which can help to reduce gangs and gang crime.

I hope to continue my involvement in scouting – it’s really enriched my life, and I’m eager to give back some of what was given to me.

Edit: Interesting new clip, I thought it was really great 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cOM1n22XyHA

Okay, so this week I’ve been a bit lax. I missed Beavers, because I was revising for my psychology PSYA1 exam which was on Tuesday. I’m also in the process of writing up a programme for them to use on one evening this term. As I’m learning Mandarin, both Squirrel (one of the adult leaders) and I thought it would be a good idea for me to design a programme based around Chinese New Year (Monday 23^rd this year). So that’s in the works – I’ll hopefully write something about how it turns out.

I have subscribed to a news feed called MedTerms Daily. It sends me medical words and definitions, and if I’m interested in what they seem to be about or related to, I look them up. Today’s was Caesarean Section (C section). This is the procedure where a baby, rather than being born vaginally, is surgically removed/extracted.

 It’s actually a really old procedure (something which surprised me) and dates back as far as the roman emperor, Julius Caesar, after whom it was named. It was also around, and prevalent enough to make it into the script of Shakespeare’s Macbeth – Macduff was not “born of woman”, referring to the fact that he was a C-section baby.  The “section” part comes from the surgical division of tissue – in this case the abdominal and uterine walls, in order to extract the baby.

Pop-up Anatomy

On the tenth of December, my friend Rob and I hopped onto a train and went down to London to see the pop-up anatomy sessions. This was a one day only event, for the everyman, about surgery and anatomy. They had a couple of actors, a couple of dummies and a fair few doctors as well as all the mock equipment etc.  What happened was:

·         A young woman walked into the room. There was a mock consultation, where the doctor took a history and decided she had something wrong with her gall bladder, which needed immediate attention, and surgery (he skipped the testing for the benefit of the situation).

·         Next, a youngish man was wheeled in, clutching bloody pads to his stomach (he’d been “stabbed”) and the doctor talked a little bit about what would happen, before wheeling him back out into wherever he came from.

·         We were split into two groups: key hole surgery on the dummy with a gall bladder problem, and open surgery for the stabbed man.

·         We saw and touched a bit, listened to the doctor, then swapped to the other “theatre”.

I personally really enjoyed it, and found working with the laparoscope challenging but fun. However, I thought keyhole surgery would be a rarity – something done when you could afford to pay for it, or in exceptional medical circumstances, but one of the doctors was saying that it may end up becoming the norm, even in acute medicine. Already it is considered the standard procedure for gallstones, hernias, reflux (heartburn), excessive sweating, certain cases of hysterectomy (womb-removal), appendectomy (appendix removal), cruciate ligament replacement and obesity (to name a few).

But what exactly is keyhole surgery? Essentially, instead of a great big gash in your side which takes AGES to heal you have 4 or 5 little cuts which have ports implanted into them. Through these ports they operate a light, a live-feed video camera, and as many little implements as they need (scalpel, pincers etc). The benefits are basically, fewer traumas to the patient, less time needed to heal, less pain. However, the drawbacks are extra training needed, higher risks of complications and it’s a more difficult procedure.

I’m not rubbishing open surgery though – after all, if something goes wrong, the chances are they’ll pull out the ports, and then continue as if it were open surgery. I doubt keyhole will ever be used for problems like a  stabbing, although it could be possible at some point in the future.

With the open surgery he talked a bit about what they’d do – packing the abdomen in four quadrants to soak up blood, before removing them to see where the bleeding was coming from, if there was any damage to organs etc. I found this really interesting because of the pressure that would be on the surgeon to analyse the patient’s condition and try to fix problems, the risks of complications etc. It made me think about whether I’d want to do acute medicine if I ever got through medical school, and I’ve decided I would definitely consider it – it looks tremendously rewarding, regardless of the hours and stress.

At the end it was any questions, and I found one of the trainee surgeons and followed him about, listening to his answers to questions and asking a few of my own. It was all very interesting, and one thing he did mention was worth looking at was the Hunterian museum. Apparently it’s a museum dedicated to surgery, and should be interesting, especially as I'm considering going into that area of medicine (although I realise I'm far more likely to become a GP than a surgeon, it might happen!)

Also, if anyone is in London, the venue was the Wellcome collection, and is worth a visit – the other exhibitions they had were really good!

This link here is the web address for what I went to see, but I doubt it’ll stay open for that long after the event... http://www.wellcomecollection.org/whats-on/events/pop-up-anatomy-lesson.aspx
 

Where I got most of my backup info from:

http://keyholesurgery.net/index.html
http://www.aboutoperations.co.uk/keyhole-surgery.html