Students on our Medical School Preparation programme very much enjoyed their neurology lesson yesterday, as the discussion of clinical practice touched on issues of ethics in the profession. The focus of the lesson was the upper limb examination, which doctors use to determine the function of the nervous system.

Students learned that there are five considerations to be made in the examination of the upper limb: tone (how rigid the muscles are), power (how strong are the muscles), reflexes (are they regular, reduced, or increased), co-ordination, and sensation. These considerations help doctors determine whether there are problems with the patient’s central nervous system, or any of the components of the peripheral nervous system (the autonomic, enteric and somatic nervous systems). Teacher Alex also impressed upon her students the importance of gaining consent when carrying out these kinds of examinations, for the purpose both of maintaining a positive relationship with patients, and avoiding civil, criminal or disciplinary legal proceedings.

Over in Engineering School Preparation, students were exploring aerodynamics, and ended their lesson with a practical experiment on the Manor lawns: the task was to figure out the angle of elevation for a toy gun that would project the missile the furthest distance. The stairs up to the back lawn helped the experiment get off to a flying start!