Just to note - you don't need an atlas full of pictures showing left and right shifts in neutrophils, or to know what a Howell-Jolly body is, you just need (yeah, you've guessed it) Google. It's got a plethora (get it? If you don't, just wait until after Haem and read this again) of pictures and info. The block is very well organised and if, like me, you didn't bother going to plenary sessions for the other blocks I would strongly suggest you go to these.
Tired? Pale? Slight ejection systolic murmur? It's true that this could be a discription of your current state, with it being the end of the year and such, but it also describes an anaemic patient quite well. That's week one for you. The thing about anaemia is that it is extremely common. If you divide it into two broad groups - megaloblastic and non-megaloblastic (which is then further divided into normo- and microcytic) - life will be made much easier.
Haemolysis (haem being blood cells, lysis being destruction) is common, and important. Week two covers this. To understand haemolysis you need to divide it into broad groups - intravascular and extravascular. Malaria is discussed here and was the topic of the SACS paper when I was in GEMP I. It sucked. Wow. Anyway... For a very well written piece on Malaria and its pathogenesis I would suggest you read it from the textbook used in MBBCh and BHSc II Molecular Medicine textbooks. It's way too much detail, but rather too much than too little.
Haematological malignancies - myelo- and lymphoproliferative disorders are covered in weeks three and four. The clinical aspects of these diseases will be covered in depth in GEMP III, whereas the basic sciences, the molecular aspects, will be covered here. I don't believe in summaries. It doesn't work for me and I don't like rewriting other people's work; however, it was such a useful tool to have all the different malignancies with their specific cell lines and mutations on one page. Try it out.
Week five delves into immunology a bit. It's nothing that you don't already know, or at least vaguely remember from PCMS (I almost vomited whilst typing that). It was super fascinating. I remember that the course pack was the most interesting one of the block, albeit very long. The way that the T and B cells mature. Amazing! Sorry, I just realised my geek was showing. Moving along...
Okay, the course pack in week six was dreadful. The pictures used for the clotting cascade is not useful unless you already know it, defeating the point only a tad. So to understand the clotting cascade I asked my trusty friend, Google. He then referred me to YouTube and I finally got it. So check this video first, before attempting the course pack. It's seriously simple. Now you're ready for the course pack.
The very last week, week seven, is really straight forward. Surgeons love talking about this in morning rounds, so best know it now. Deep vein thrombosis and Pulmonary emboli are the order of the day. Here's an important tip - when considering if you should get rid of the clot by breaking it up with thrombolytics, don't. Seriously. It releases a cascade of inflammatory agents and compromises the rest of the respiratory vasculature. The only time you should break up the clot is if the patient has a low blood pressure.
This was, second to the block that shan't be named (as a result of prior emesis), the most difficult block. Hang in there though, almost there!
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