Monday, September 10, 2012

Learning the FUN way




photo credit:  http://brandsunderconstruction.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/blog_thinker.jpg



Learning is a continuous process. You only stop learning when you decide to stop. And as we students can always hear, learning is not confined in the four corners of the classroom.

The greatest challenge for an educator is to think of ways by how learning can be achieved without having to sacrifice the enjoyment or the interests of his/her students. Many techniques have been employed just to make sure that learning will take place among students. Live demonstrations, interactive games, video presentations are only some of the techniques employed by educators to add spice into learning.

photo credit:  https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsKtdAA5zxW4yP04kKg6Xz7kqohrv0DXNYN3VJeGm6X10daaFRcfhseajJ5_NCv1UEwUthGbuec76QQqQg-ov1M19zyNrNbFw3JiuEI__Aa7jObpOAjZtQmU79Dx49rnuOCOJf_zttcFE/s1600/Bloggings.jpg


With the advent of technology, learning techniques must keep its pace with technology or else, it will be left behind. One way by which learning has adapted in modern times is by educational blogging or edublogging.

Students now a day face the computer more often than books. Internet from a want now became a need. In order to enforce learning while students are browsing the net, edublogging has been employed by educators. But edublogging is not only for teachers, it can also be employed by students like us.

photo credit:  https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2zihLjv1zhtPndTCs68Njuhre7ad-p9Um3-7piO1wPJhqJXVwK_ojCf79YfoeotJwasxY6dAkfrHY2sKPnveGEdK-ucLoiDlfXfxQTEwsGTALBqfWj4-i40RGgTb072nVIy0V33J_sLny/s1600/blogging-tags.gif


You cannot discover everything on your own, you need the help of others. This became evident in our blog posts. As a student, I learn from what I research and post but at the same time, I learn from the posts of my fellow students. Learning is indeed a cooperative process. Edublogging paved the way for us to share our knowledge.


photo credit: http://manhattaninfidel.com/__oneclick_uploads/2012/08/blogging.jpg 


Edublogging also triggered the literary capabilities of the students. At first they were afraid to post because they think they do not know how to write beautiful articles. But eventually, they realized that they have that talent for writing.

Edublogging also taught us to be careful on what we post, especially if we are using the words of other people. We should never ever ever forget to cite our references when we blog.

photo credit:  https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYh5DGepsCUqOCtDmeAcNQkDukaQd9VZYHdUOxP2bGYrdjJXSucm79XDMaobfSovO4fChNM1B0Tfr0Za2VCpzEEmT4FeZLbk4fVhGP65WGJ8kHVjlfMbVmvjVrGri3Q5zCiBsi3Jfy_Fo/s1600/blog.jpg 


All in all, edublogging is a new, fun and exciting way to make students learn and the same time make them enjoy what they are doing.

I am proud that once in my life I created an Educational Blog which might have been helpful to other students but this would not be possible if not for a great mentor who never gets tired of looking after us. VBG :D


photo credit:  http://blog.hubspot.com/Portals/249/images/i_love_blogging1.jpg 
                                            

Tuesday, July 10, 2012

Toxicology


Toxicology is defined as the study of poisons and its effect on organisms especially with the humans. It is also concerned with the study of the symptoms, mechanisms, treatment and detection of poisoning.  A poison is any substance which has adverse effects upon exposure.

Major disciplines of Toxicology

  • 1.       Mechanistic – mimics the biochemical and cellular effects of toxins. Studies from this field provide a foundation for rational therapy design and development of tests aimed to assess degree of exposure of poisoned human.
  • 2.       Descriptive- uses results from animal experiments  to see what level of exposure will cause damage to humans, this process is otherwise known as risk assessment.
  • 3.       Forensic- this is concerned in medicolegal consequences of toxin exposure
  • 4.       Clinical – deals with interrelationship of toxins to diseases.

*Other areas include: Aquatic , Chemical, Ecotoxicology, Environmental toxicology, and Medical toxicology.

Toxin Exposure

From a clinical point of view, exposure to toxins occur due to suicide(50%), accidents(30%) and the remaining percentage to occupational hazards and even homicide. Accidental exposure occurs more commonly among children and suicide-induced exposure produces the highest mortality rate.

Routes

  • 1.       Ingestion- most commonly seen in clinical setting
  • 2.       Inhalation
  • 3.       Transdermal


Although harm produced by poisoning is due to poisons, other factors must be taken into consideration. One of the key factors in identifying the effect of poison is its dose.  In toxicology, any substance can cause harm if given at the correct dosage, this includes water. The dose of toxin is positively correlated to its effect. Although death is the most severe effect of poisoning, some toxins when given at small amounts can produce pathologic effects.

Dose-Response Relationship
Photo Credit:  http://www.fao.org/docrep/009/a0238e/A0238E26.gif 


Many agents have been encountered that can produce toxic effects to humans but here are some non-drug agents which are commonly encountered and presents medical emergencies in acute exposure:
  1. Alcohol
  2. Carbon Monoxide
  3. Caustic agents
  4. Cyanide
  5. Metals and metalloids
  6. Pesticides

Here are some therapeutic drugs that are most commonly seen in overdose:
  1. Salicylates
  2. Acetaminophen

Laboratory Testing

In most cases, analysis of toxic agents is a two-step manner:
  1. Screening- rapid, simple, qualitative
  2. Confirmatory- example is Thin Layer Chromatography 
Thin Layer Chromatography
Photo Credit:  http://www.waters.com/webassets/cms/category/media/other_images/primer_b_%20thinlayer.jpg 

References:
Clinical Chemistry: Techniques, Principles, Correlations
by: Bishop, Fody, Schoeff
http://www.news-medical.net/health/Toxicology-What-is-Toxicology.aspx

Tuesday, May 15, 2012

Pass the Message

When I was still a child, i used to play the game "pass the message" wherein a group of people surround one "it" who tries to catch where the message is. In life, messages are important because they contain what we want to express. Messages can be sent by cellular phones, emails, letters and many other ways. But how are messages sent in the body? Do we have tiny postmen in our body? Or tiny cellphones scattered in our body perhaps? Or maybe, cells in our body email each other to send messages? Well of course, those are all products of my imagination. Our body has a set of organs that are responsible for transmitting messages, the Endocrine system.

Information in the human body is transmitted in two major routes: the nervous system and endocrine system. The nervous system uses electrical impulses to transmit information. The endocrine system uses hormones to pass information from cell to cell through the blood.

The endocrine system is composed of the glands, the hormones, and the body parts or group of cells onto which the hormones will react to. From this, endocrinology can be defined as the study of the glands from which hormones are produced, and the different disorders which arise from hormonal imbalance.

Endocrine glands are ductless glands which produces chemical messengers known as hormones. These glands are located in different parts of the body which serves different functions such as for growth, digestion, lactation and even contractions during giving birth. Of all the glands present in the body, the pituitary gland or the hypophysis is considered to be the master gland because hormones produced in it control other glands. It is divided into two regions, the anterior pituitary gland or adenohypophysis and the posterior pituitary gland or the neurohypophysis. The anterior synthesizes the hormones it secretes unlike the posterior which does not synthesize the hormones it secretes.


Anatomic position of Endocrine glands.
Photo fromhttp://www.healthadviceonline.biz/elken-mrt/step-4-health-regulation/5-endocrine-system/endocrine-system


Hormones are the chemical substances that transmit the information for the cells. They can be protein, aromatic amines or steroid in nature. They can also be classified as to autocrine and paracrine. Autocrines act onto the cells on which they were produced, on the other hand, paracrines act onto cells other than where they were produced. Hormones normally act onto target tissues where they act but some hormones act onto other glands to stimulate production of other hormones.

Diseases that arise from hormonal imbalance may be classified as hormonal excess and hormonal deficiency.



Here is a short video about the endocrine system and how it functions:


 


References:Kaplan, Lawrence A. , Pesce, Amadeo J. ;Clinical Chemistry: Theory, Analysis and Correlation 2nd Ed. ; p. 608McPherson, Richard A., Pincus, Matthew R.; Henry’s Clinical Diagnosis and Management by Laboratory Methods 22nd Ed. ; pp. 365-366