Cardio Vascular System

Over the last couple of weeks I have been learning about the cardio vascular system. We learned combining forms related to the heart, suffixes, prefixes, and a lot of vocabulary.

The heart is made up of four different chambers; right and left atrium, and right and left ventricles.
The Ventricles are the two lower chambers of the heart. The left ventricle pumps blood through the arteries from the heart back to body tissue. The right ventricle pumps blood to the lungs.

The atriums are the two upper chambers. The right atrium recieves blood returning from the body through the viens. The left atrium recieves blood from the lungs.

Now, there are also antrioventricular valves that lie between the atriums and ventricles. The mitral valve lies between ther left atrium and the left ventricle. The Tricuspid lies between the right atrium and the riught ventricle.

I also learned about different types of blood cells such as Leukocytes abd Erythrocytes.
Leukocytes are white blood cells that combat infection and respond to inflamation. There are also five different types of leukocytes:

• Neutrophil
• Eosinophil
• Basophil
• Lymphocyte
• Monocyte

The other type of blood cell is Erythrocytes. These are red blood cells that carry oxygen. These blood cells develop in bone marrow.

I learned alot of cardio vascular vocabulary aswell.

• Ischemia - Deficiency of blood flow
• Cardiomegaly - Enlargment of the heart
• Pericarditis - Inflamation of the sac surrounding the heart
• Angioma - tumor composed of blood vessels.
• Fibrillation - Rapid, quivering, noncoordinated contractions of tha atria or ventricles.
• Aneurysm - balooning of a weakend portion of an arterial wall.
• Cardiac Arrest - sudden cessation of cardiac output and effective circulation.

Respiratory System

This week was our first week back after Spring break. We had a lecture on the cardiocascular systestem and learned how it works and a lot of terms. The cardiovascular system consists of the heart and a closed network of blood vessells composed of arteries, capillaries, and veins.

For example the cardiovascular system is made up of several structures:

1. Heart
2. Atrioventricular Valves
3. Semilunar Valves
4. pericardium
5. Blood vessels
6. Arteries
7. Arterioles
8. Aorta
9. Veins
10. Venules
11. Venae Cavae
12. Capillaries 

The heart is located behind the sternum (breast bone) and between the lungs. The heart consists of two upper chambers: The right atrium and the left artium. As well as two lower chambers: the right ventricle and left ventricle. The upper chambers are used to recieve blood, and the lower chambers to pump blood.

There are three layers of the heart, the epicardium, which covers the heart, myocardium, the middle, thick, muscular layer, and endocardium, the inner layer of the heart.

Funtion:

• The heart pumps blood containing oxygen and nutrients to body tissues through the arteries.
• The exchange of gases, nutrients, and waste between the blood and body tissue takes place in the capillaries.
• The blood carying carbon dioxide and waste is carried from the tissues through veins to organs of excretion.

Grading Period 1 - Medical Terminology

This grading period went very well for me. Over the corse of the grading period we learned about many different things, such as the respiratory system, the digestive system, word parts and abrevations, body structure, and the integumentary system. 

RESPIRATORY SYSTEM:

I learned a lot of combining forms of the respiratory system. For example:

lung - pulmon/o

nose - nas/o, and rhin/o

larynx - laryng/o

These are just a few examples of the dozens of words that there were. I had to do the chapter work for the respiratory system in the book, and did 65 pages of excersizes to learn the words and there meaning.

(Above is an image from the textbook, labeling the main parts of the repiratory system.

To the right is an image of the flow of air and how it we are able to inhale and exhale.)

I also learned about Respiratory diseases. There are a lot of problems that can form in the respiratory system making it very hard, or impossible to breathe. These deseases can occur anywhere, not just the lungs; for example:

Nasopharyngitis - inflamation of the nose and pharynx

Pleuritis - inflamation of the pleura (also called pleurisy)

Pneumonia - Diseased state of the lung ) the infection and inflamation are caused by bacteria such as Pneumococcus, Staphylococcus, Streptococcus, and Haemophilus.

These are a few of the 55 deseases that I learned about. Alot can go wrong in the respiratory system which could be deadly for some people. Its a complex system that can be infected fairly easily.

DIGESTIVE SYSTEM:

(Below is an image of the basic digestive system.)

The digestive system, is a long tube comprising the mouth, pharynx, esophagus, stomach, small intestine, large intestine, rectum, and anus.

I learned a lot about the functions of the digestive tract aswell.

One function of the digestive tract is ingestion, which is the taking in of nutrients through the mouth.

The next step is digestion, the mechanical and chemical breakdown of food for use by body cells.

Next is absorption. This is the transfer of digestive food from the small intestine to the blood stream.

And finally, elimination, the removal of solid waste from the body.

There are also accessory organs of the digestive system. This consists of the salivary glands, liver, bile ducts, gallblader, and the pancreas.

I learned combining forms of the Digestive Tract. A few examples are:

Antrum - Antr/o

Cecum - cec/o

Stomach - gastr/o

I learned a lot this grading period. We took 4 tests, including the midterm and did four chapters of book work along with the study guides for every test. I'm doing really well in the class and I am continueing to learn alot.

Welcome

Hi, my name is Lilly Bargioni. Welcome to my Pathways Medical Assisting blog. This blog will keep an updated log of everything I'll be doing in the Pathways program I am currently taking. The Pathways Program is a small learning community designed to engage students through an individualized educational curriculum with a focus on "making real" the post-graduation opportunities that are available to students. Our goal is to help our students to find their passion and their path to future careers through a combination of internships and apprenticeships, as well as successful completion of college courses, and/or vocational training through the Regional Occupation Program (ROP) while also earning their highschool doploma. This program will set me up with an internship at Kaiser Permanente in Marin County, and I will be taking a few classes at College of Marin; such as Medical Terminology 1, Medical Office Computers Lecture, and Medical Office Computers Laboratory.

How it all began

I went to highschool for three and a half years at Sir Francis Drake High School. Things took a turn and the best thing for me to do was to transfer to San Andreas High School, where I took normal classes for about two months. When I heard about the Pathways program here, I knew it was the right thing for me. It is a program for seniors in highschool to get a jump start into their future if they know what they are interested in. I already knew that my future was destined to be in a hospital, and I have been very eager to get out of highschool and to start focussing on somthing that I am really interested in. So I applied for the pathways program, and was accepted and I am really looking forward to getting a jumpstart on my career.

What I am learning

I am currently enrolled in three classes at College of Marin;

• Medical Terminology 1
• Medical Office Computers (Lecture)
• Medical Office Computers (Laboratory) 

My first week of classes ran very smoothly. We have not started to learn any new material yet, we spent the entire class discussing what books to get and what we will need for the class. We were told to do chapter one on our own and come in to class on monday with a brief understanding of word roots, suffixes, prefixes, and combining vowels. For example:
Leuk/emia - emia is the suffix, meaning blood condition, and leuk/o is the word root meaning white. When you put them in combining form the word leukemia means white blood condition.

The second week of classes got a little harder. We started getting more into lectures on medical terms and how to analyze them. We learned the three steps to analyzing medical terms:
1. Divide the term.
2. Label each word part
3. Label each combining vowel.
We were also assigned a test for the next week on Chapter 1. (Word roots, prefixes, suffixes, combining vowels, and some medical terms)
The Medisoft class also started picking up a bit. We had a lecture on how to sign on, back up, restore, and save our data on the medisoft program. After the lecture we got to go into the computer lab and try it for ourselves.

This week we had our test for medical terminology. I fealt great after the test, I fealt very confident with all the information. After we finished the test we started a new lecture on chapter 2, which was significantly harder then the first. Now we are currently learning about oncology,the study of tumors and how they develop from excessive growth of cells from a body part. There are two types of tumors, benign (non canerous), and malignant (canerous). We are also learning about disease and disorder oncology terms, such as adenoma (tumor composed of glandular tissue), epithelioma (tumor composed of epithelium) and many others. I am still currently working on chapter learning about body structure terms.
The medisoft class has picked up a lot, we have been working in the lab alot and creating new patients in the software. We have learned how to create a new patient, edit their information, add new businesses, back save and restore their data.





Where this path leads

Look at me now

What my teachers and employers have to say