martha icon. of course.

[fahye]

What did I learn today?



Bones of the hand, bitches :D

We also had our first ever psychological medicine lecture, which was like coming home and rediscovering all the shiny things you'd forgotten about while you were away, and I got a chocolate frog (the lecturer = very keen on lobbing chocolate frogs across the enormous lecture hall) for knowing why we consider specific phobias of blood & injury to be a separate group to all the other specific phobias.

He also made us watch fifteen minutes of the 1979 original When a Stranger Calls in an earnest, totally non-ironic effort to help us experience a moderate fear reaction. It was great.

So...a good ending to a pretty sucky week, all-in-all. I have absolutely nothing planned for the weekend, so if any Sydneysiders want to kidnap me or go out to lunch or see a movie or something, let me know!

Comments

[apiphile.livejournal.com]

why we consider specific phobias of blood & injury to be a separate group to all the other specific phobias

Care to enlighten the curious but scientifically uneducated few?

[fahye.livejournal.com]

Certainly! It's because with most specific phobias, when the person encounters the object/experience that they are afraid of, there is physiological arousal -- faster heartbeat and breathing, sweaty palms, a flight reaction. Whereas when people have specific phobias of eg. having blood taken, they experience physiological depression, meaning that they can lose proper blood flow to the head and are likely to faint.

*edumacates*

[apiphile.livejournal.com]

Thank you, the edumacation fairy!

Further probing (because Professor Google is rarely coherent) ... do folk know *why* it has the depressive effect?

[fahye.livejournal.com]

*I* don't, which could just be because I've forgotten, or it could be (quite likely -- this is psychiatry after all) that nobody knows! Does Professor Google have any theories?

[apiphile.livejournal.com]

Nothing that Derek "Nearly Failed GCSE Simple Science" Des Anges can understand (http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6T0G-4PB0PVY-R&_user=10&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&view=c&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=81980517d96dfcd41ae74182cda16dc3). :(

I wonder if it's a sympathetic reaction?

EDIT: Oh, this one makes slightly more sense:

Subjects with blood-injection-injury phobia (cases) had higher lifetime histories of fainting and seizures than those without (non-cases). None reported seeking mental health treatment specifically for phobia. Prevalences were lower in the elderly and higher in females and persons with less education. Cases had significantly higher than expected lifetime prevalences of other psychiatric conditions, including marijuana abuse/dependence, major depression, obsessive–compulsive disorder, panic disorder, agoraphobia, social phobia and other simple phobia. Cases and non-cases did not differ with regard to usual health-care settings, regular care for specific medical conditions, numbers of out-patient visits or hospitalizations, or previous general anaesthesia or live births. However, diabetics with blood-injection-injury phobia had higher than expected rates of macrovascular complications.

[genarti]

...Hunh.

Okay, that's just cool.

Strange, but cool!

[-leareth.livejournal.com]

I need to give you your table and umbrella and my Saturday all day class is canceled. Also probably be going for a drive to the eastern suburbs and Surry Hills if you're interested.

[fahye.livejournal.com]

What are you planning on doing in the eastern suburbs?

Also, there is a chocolate cafe on Glebe Point Road that I want to drag you to. Short walk from campus. Morning tea perhaps?

[-leareth.livejournal.com]

Take my artist friend Caro around and convince her to move to Sydney. Chocolate cafe, I think, will aid greatly in that :3

[fahye.livejournal.com]

Okay! If you park somewhere on campus and then come bang on my door (or just yell up from the Maples carpark) then we can do a-wandering in the direction of chocolate. Or...more logically, we could meet somewhere closer to that road, like in Victoria Park.

[-leareth.livejournal.com]

RIghty-o. Will call and let you know what's going on -- going out for kareoke now :P

[fahye.livejournal.com]

Have fun!

[sophistry]

Bones of the hand = totally sexy.

I think this is the fundamental difference between medical doctors and archaeologists. Besides, you know, all the other stuff. We both think bones are AWESOME, but you have a vested interest in keeping them inside their respective bodies, whereas we just like to play with them.

[fahye.livejournal.com]

I don't know, I kind of like playing with them too :D But yeah, they're more fun when you know why they're shaped like they are and where the muscles go and what happens when they snap.

[amayonolune.livejournal.com]

Where in the great universe of evolution did the sesamoid bone become necessary in the functionality of the human being?

Also, yeay raining chocolate frogs

[fahye.livejournal.com]

I have no damn clue *grins*

[ariastar.livejournal.com]

I did not before now even know that the sesamoid bone existed. Why does it exist??

Yay, Fahye, you are turning into Martha Jones! soon you will be the most awesome person in the known universe.

[fahye.livejournal.com]

NO IDEA AT ALL *blithe*

I know, right? All I need now is an adventure on the moon.

[dubhartach.livejournal.com]

Did they have an acronym for the carpal bones? (of course, you could just *learn* them ... then maybe you wouldn't still have to mutter your one of choice under your breath 13 years later, huh)

[fahye.livejournal.com]

No acronym was provided, but I expect I will be making one up! Do you have a handy one?

[dubhartach.livejournal.com]

Handy, heh

Mine is bad bad bad

Scabby Lucy Pissed Twice Having Come Twenty Times

You see why I wish I didn't still have to mutter it ...

I always remember that the trapiziUM articulates with the thUMb too.

[fahye.livejournal.com]

*waves a hand*

Still not as bad as the cranial nerves acronym!

[dubhartach.livejournal.com]

Oh Oh Oh ?

[fahye.livejournal.com]

That's the one :D