Three M2s and one M1 were standing in the hallway chatting. The M1 currently is in Anatomy.
M1: My cadaver has a megacolon, which is really cool.
M2s: Cool!!
M1: What causes megacolon?
M2s: [long silent pause while we rack our brains]
Elaine: Wait, wait, I know we learned this in microbiology a few months ago. It was Dr. Bearman's lecture. I think it's caused by some sort of bacteria.
Joe: I thought it was caused by parasites.
Elaine: Oh... Maybe....
Anthony: It's also caused by Hirschsprung's disease, but I only know this because I was assigned Hirschsprung's last year for my Genetics presentation.
Elaine: What's Hirschsprung's disease??
None of us M2s could remember the specific microorganisms. Sigh, not encouraging for Boards.
But at least Joe, Anthony, and I were all right--I just looked it up: megacolon can be caused by 1) Clostridium difficil (a bacterium), 2) Chaga's disease's Trypanosoma cruzi (parasite), or 3) Hirschsprung's disease--congenital absence of the Auerbach's plexus, the nerves that innervate the colon. At least we didn't say it is caused by a "virus"--score! (kind of).
Edit 11/23: I just posed the "what causes megacolon" question to four other M2s. They were all silent, until Billy said, "We haven't had the GI course yet." They forgot too. Score!
