Tutor profile: Andrew C.

What are the pros and cons of pursuing a career in medicine? What are each of the specialties like?

Happy to discuss this in detail as I've been through a tremendously long training path!

Draw the Krebs cycle.

This question haunts us even now during the late stages of our training. Obviously it is easy to forget and we often rely on common mnemonics to help us remember this. However, obviously, this cycle is critical in cell energetics and may be perturbed in different types of cancer, for example. How would we even study this? We can talk about radio-isotope labeling and ways to see how glucose oxidation is effective. Some people are studying this real-time using fresh tumor tissue.

What are the branches off the abdominal aorta?

The main branches are the celiac artery, bilateral renal arteries, superior mesenteric artery, inferior mesenteric artery and iliac arteries. I initially felt that anatomy was too much rote memorization and can empathize with those that may find it boring. However, anatomy is most exciting when applied clinically and surgically - for example, one can typically sacrifice the inferior mesenteric artery but we have to be especially careful to not injure the superior mesenteric artery. Why? Because of the collateral blood supply to your bowels! This is very relevant when you are performing surgery to remove the left kidney - sometimes, you can be deceived into thinking that the superior mesenteric artery is the left renal artery. But this would be a major error!