Final Exam issues

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Hi everyone –

I’m sorry it’s taken me so long to get this exam finalized. There is something about Canvas that makes it incredibly complicated to correct miskeyed questions, and there were three of them – so I’m still working at it, but it is slow going.

I tried correcting the miskeyed questions, but it only sort of worked – and it didn’t show up on everyone’s grade. Which is rather maddening, because now I’m trying to sort out whose grade got boosted and whose didn’t 😦

Anyway – I wanted to let you know which questions were miskeyed, in case you remember them, and were wondering why you got them wrong.

Which hypersensitivity reaction involves antibodies binding to antigens on a cell surface?
 A. Type I
B. Type II
C. Type III
D. Type IV

The correct answer is B, but it was miskeyed as C.

You only make anti-A or anti-B antibodies after you’ve been exposed to type A or B blood (e.g., after a transfusion):
 A. True
B. False

The correct answer is false (you are actually born with antibodies against whatever antigens you do NOT have on your red cells – kind of weird but true). The question was accidentally keyed as true.

Which of the following is used to determine a tumor’s grade?
 A. The number of lymph nodes involved by tumor
B. The presence or absence of metastases
C. The microscopic appearance of the tumor
D. The size of the tumor

The correct answer is C. The question was miskeyed as D.

Grading is a microscopic way of looking at a tumor to tell how “bad” it is (and it often is very helpful in determining treatment and prognosis – the worse the grade, the more aggressive the tumor is likely to be). All the other answers are parts of staging.

Staging is done clinically (using imaging studies), and it has three main components (TNM): Tumor size, Nodes (number of lymph nodes positive for tumor), and Metastases (present or absent). Staging is really important for every tumor – it kind of makes sense (the more tumor there is, and the farther it has spread, the worse the prognosis).

I’m working as quickly as possible to sort all this out and make sure your final exam scores are accurate – and I will let you know when I have completed that.

I also just want you to know that if you are borderline between two grades, I do round up quite liberally, so if that is something that has been worrying you, you can let that go 🙂

Fletch

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In our Neoplasia I: Nomenclature lecture today, I talked about the movie Fletch as it related to tumor nomenclature. I double checked an Fletch is on Netflix again! Yay!

I couldn’t find the exact scene I wanted to show you guys (the one where Fletch says “He has melanoma…carcinoma…some kind of noma“), probably because it wasn’t nearly as funny as the rest of the film. But I did find a couple good clips, in case you need a laugh. Here they are.

Clip 1: Dr. Rosenpenis

This is just silly, stupid humor, but actually, that’s exactly why I like it.

Clip 2: Autopsy assistant

This is great because it’s exactly how I felt at my first autopsy. I could tolerate the sight of the body, and even the sound (barely) of the bone saw – but the smell…oh man, the pathologist in this scene is spot-on: you just never get used to the smell.

What’s it like to have scleroderma?

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Tomorrow we’ll talk about the systemic sclerosis, or scleroderma.

The New York Times has a nice recurring feature called “Patient Voices” in which several patients with a particular disease talk about how that disease has affected their lives. Here is a Patient Voice article on scleroderma. It’s a bunch of short stories (a couple minutes each), narrated by the patients themselves, accompanied by a series of photos of the patient. I highly recommend you listen to some of these. I identified with “The Mom with Frozen Fingers;” you may wish to start with “Losing his color” which is narrated by a 26 year old man. I think you’ll probably find yourself listening to more than one.

There are others Patient Voices segments on lupus and Sjogren syndrome too.

Selena Gomez and others talk about lupus

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Selena Gomez has been battling lupus for many years. She’s been open about her diagnosis and has talked very candidly about the toll it’s taken on her.

Here are some articles and videos, if you want to read/watch more:

  • She has a documentary called “My Mind and Me” on Apple TV. Here’s a short trailer. 
  • Here’s a fairly recent Today Show article/video in which she talks about her health.
  • Here is an older ABC article in which Selena and other patients talk about what it is really like to have lupus.

In 2017, she underwent a kidney transplant for complications related to her disease. Her disease course is more severe than it is for many patients with the disease; kidney transplants are typically used only after other, less dangerous treatments fail.

Quiz 2 information

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As I mentioned last week, tomorrow’s Quiz 2 will NOT be given in class!

It is a take-home, open-book, talk-with-each-other if you want quiz, posted on Canvas. It has 10 multiple-choice, single-answer questions, each worth 1 point, and it covers all the lecture material from 5/27 through and including the slides we will cover today.

It will be open from Monday, June 8 at noon until Wednesday, June 10 at 11:59 pm. You can take the quiz at any time during that period.

You’ll have 20 minutes to complete it once you start (people with accommodations have time adjusted accordingly). Please complete and submit it by 11:59 pm Wednesday.

Any questions, let me know!

Schedule tweak for Monday, June 8

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We’ve been doing some in-class Kahoot questions, no-stakes, no points, just to reinforce the points I want to make sure I get across to you. And you guys have been doing REALLY WELL, I just want to say! It’s impressive 🙂

Adding in those Kahoot questions has been good, I think – but it also takes up a part of our lecture time, and we’re just a little behind (we got through most of Autoimmune diseases today, but there are still 10 slides left).

In order to keep our schedule organized and on time, I’d like to finish the rest of the Autoimmune Diseases slides on Monday, June 8, then go through a few in-class Kahoot questions on Autoimmune Diseases, and then turn Quiz 2 into a take-home, open-book quiz. I’m going to see how the Canvas quiz options work – and if that seems like a good option, we’ll use that platform. Otherwise, I’ll use Google forms.

That way we’ll be on track to do Transfusion Medicine on Wednesday without missing anything.

By the way, I’ve been posting the short in-class Kahoots both on our Kahoots page and on our Schedule page, in case you want to go back and look at them.

Please let me know if you have any questions!