The Rx Bricks Podcast

It might not be the flashiest anatomical structure, but if you want to stand upright, and keep your retroperitoneal organs (like your kidneys) in place, the posterior abdominal wall is pretty important. Located at the back of the body, bounded by the lateral abdominal walls and the posterior parietal peritoneum, the posterior abdominal wall is a complex combination of muscles, bones, nerves, and vessels that provides structural support for the body and for the organs of the retroperitoneal space.

After listening to this AudioBrick, you should be able to:

You can also check out the original brick from our Cardiovascular collection, which is available for free.

Learn more about Rx Bricks by signing up for a free USMLE-Rx account: www.usmle-rx.com

You will get 5 days of full access to our Rx360+ program, including nearly 800 Rx Bricks.  After the 5-day period, you will still be able to access over 150 free bricks, including the entire collections for General Microbiology and Cellular and Molecular Biology.

***

If you enjoyed this episode, we’d love for you to leave a review on Apple Podcasts.  It helps with our visibility, and the more med students (or future med students) listen to the podcast, the more we can provide to the future physicians of the world.

Follow USMLE-Rx at:

Learn how you can access over 150 of our bricks for FREE: https://usmlerx.wpengine.com/free-bricks/

Epithelium is one of the four basic tissue types (the other three are muscle tissue, nerve tissue, and connective tissue). It is found throughout the body—covering it; lining organs, vessels, and cavities; and forming glands. It absorbs nutrients, transports electrolytes, secretes hormones, and regulates body temperature by producing sweat.

We begin with some general principles of how epithelial tissue is organized, and then we describe its various components.

After listening to this AudioBrick, you should be able to:

You can also check out the original brick on the Histology of Epithelial Tissue from our Musculoskeletal, Skin, and Connective Tissue collection, which is available for free.

Learn more about Rx Bricks by signing up for a free USMLE-Rx account: www.usmle-rx.com

You will get 5 days of full access to our Rx360+ program, including nearly 800 Rx Bricks.  After the 5-day period, you will still be able to access over 150 free bricks, including the entire collections for General Microbiology and Cellular and Molecular Biology.

***

If you enjoyed this episode, we’d love for you to leave a review on Apple Podcasts.  It helps with our visibility, and the more med students (or future med students) listen to the podcast, the more we can provide to the future physicians of the world.

Follow USMLE-Rx at:

Learn how you can access over 150 of our bricks for FREE: https://usmlerx.wpengine.com/free-bricks/

What do you know about prokaryote structure and the gram stain? Bacteria are members of a unique taxonomic kingdom consisting of prokaryotic unicellular organisms. Prokaryote is a term from ancient Greek meaning “before the kernel.” The kernel in this case is a nucleus, which prokaryotes lack. Prokaryotes also do not have any membrane-bound organelles. In fact, many of the organelles found in eukaryotes—like an endoplasmic reticulum, mitochondria, Golgi apparatus, lysosomes, and peroxisomes—are completely absent in prokaryotes.

Bacteria first began to be identified by a “defective method.” Or so its Danish inventor, a recent medical school grad named Hans Christian Gram, deemed it in 1884. Gram was working with lung tissue from cadavers who had died of infections from Streptococcus pneumoniae and Klebsiella pneumoniae when he discovered that those organisms reacted differently to certain substances under the microscope, and—voilà—the Gram stain was born, to identify gram-positive bacteria. The defect he mentioned was overcome by German pathologist Carl Weigert, who added a final step to Gram’s procedure and gave us the method to identify gram-negative bacteria. We’re still using the same techniques more than 130 years later!

After listening to this AudioBrick, you should be able to:

To learn more about prokaryote structure and the gram stain, check out the original brick on Gastrointestinal Regulatory Substances from our Gastrointestinal collection, which is available for free.

Learn more about Rx Bricks by signing up for a free USMLE-Rx account: www.usmle-rx.com

You will get 5 days of full access to our Rx360+ program, including nearly 800 Rx Bricks.  After the 5-day period, you will still be able to access over 150 free bricks, including the entire collections for General Microbiology and Cellular and Molecular Biology.

***

If you enjoyed this episode, we’d love for you to leave a review on Apple Podcasts.  It helps with our visibility, and the more med students (or future med students) listen to the podcast, the more we can provide to the future physicians of the world.

Follow USMLE-Rx at:

Learn how you can access over 150 of our bricks for FREE: https://usmlerx.wpengine.com/free-bricks/

In our increasingly interconnected world, health challenges transcend national boundaries and demand global solutions. Global health is an interdisciplinary field of study and practice that seeks to improve the health and well-being of populations worldwide, focusing on the health challenges that require global and national action in every country. It encompasses epidemiology, public health, medicine, environmental health, anthropology, sociology, health policy, and economics.

After listening to this AudioBrick, you should be able to:

You can also check out the original brick from our Global Health collection, which is available for free.

Learn more about Rx Bricks by signing up for a free USMLE-Rx account: www.usmle-rx.com

You will get 5 days of full access to our Rx360+ program, including nearly 800 Rx Bricks.  After the 5-day period, you will still be able to access over 150 free bricks, including the entire collections for General Microbiology and Cellular and Molecular Biology.

***

If you enjoyed this episode, we’d love for you to leave a review on Apple Podcasts.  It helps with our visibility, and the more med students (or future med students) listen to the podcast, the more we can provide to the future physicians of the world.

Follow USMLE-Rx at:

Learn how you can access over 150 of our bricks for FREE: https://usmlerx.wpengine.com/free-bricks/

How do we survive in a complex environment filled with harmful organisms that thrive on colonizing us? Our heroic defender is the immune system, a network of organs and cell lines that exist with the mission of protecting the body from harm. While we often recognize the pathogen-fighting capabilities of the system, we can sometimes forget that the immune system is also crucial in ensuring the body is kept safe from itself, as in when our cells transform into cancer cells. On the dark side, sometimes our immune system can get overactive, reacting against our own normal body tissue. Taken together, the immune system is both critical for survival and a vital topic for new medical research.

After listening to this AudioBrick, you should be able to:

You can also check out the original brick from our Immunology collection, which is available for free.

Learn more about Rx Bricks by signing up for a free USMLE-Rx account: www.usmle-rx.com

You will get 5 days of full access to our Rx360+ program, including nearly 800 Rx Bricks.  After the 5-day period, you will still be able to access over 150 free bricks, including the entire collections for General Microbiology and Cellular and Molecular Biology.

***

If you enjoyed this episode, we’d love for you to leave a review on Apple Podcasts.  It helps with our visibility, and the more med students (or future med students) listen to the podcast, the more we can provide to the future physicians of the world.

Follow USMLE-Rx at:

Learn how you can access over 150 of our bricks for FREE: https://usmlerx.wpengine.com/free-bricks/

In the fed state, glucose is used by almost all the cells in the body to generate energy. But even when we are not fueling it with food, our bodies still run well, such as during sleep. Gluconeogenesis is the process of synthesizing glucose from noncarbohydrate precursors. The major substrates (substances that enzymes act on) are the glucogenic amino acids, lactate, glycerol, and propionate. The liver and kidneys are the major sites where gluconeogenesis occurs; the kidneys may contribute up to 40% of total glucose synthesis in the fasting state and more in starvation.

After listening to this AudioBrick, you should be able to:

You can also check out the original brick from our Cellular and Molecular Biology collection, which is available for free.

Learn more about Rx Bricks by signing up for a free USMLE-Rx account: www.usmle-rx.com

You will get 5 days of full access to our Rx360+ program, including nearly 800 Rx Bricks.  After the 5-day period, you will still be able to access over 150 free bricks, including the entire collections for General Microbiology and Cellular and Molecular Biology.

***

If you enjoyed this episode, we’d love for you to leave a review on Apple Podcasts.  It helps with our visibility, and the more med students (or future med students) listen to the podcast, the more we can provide to the future physicians of the world.

Follow USMLE-Rx at:

Learn how you can access over 150 of our bricks for FREE: https://usmlerx.wpengine.com/free-bricks/

When you hear the word blood, what do you picture in your mind? Most likely, your brain conjures up an image of thick, red liquid. But what would blood look like if you removed all the red cells? You’d be left with a murky yellowish liquid that would clear up once you removed the white cells and platelets. This lovely, clear, straw-yellow, liquid portion of blood is known as plasma.  So let’s talk about plasma composition.

After listening to this AudioBrick, you should be able to:

You can also check out the original brick on plasma composition from our Hematology collection, which is available for free.

Learn more about Rx Bricks by signing up for a free USMLE-Rx account: www.usmle-rx.com

You will get 5 days of full access to our Rx360+ program, including nearly 800 Rx Bricks.  After the 5-day period, you will still be able to access over 150 free bricks, including the entire collections for General Microbiology and Cellular and Molecular Biology.

***

If you enjoyed this episode, we’d love for you to leave a review on Apple Podcasts.  It helps with our visibility, and the more med students (or future med students) listen to the podcast, the more we can provide to the future physicians of the world.

Follow USMLE-Rx at:

Learn how you can access over 150 of our bricks for FREE: https://usmlerx.wpengine.com/free-bricks/

Hemophilia is a bleeding disorder resulting from defects in factors of the coagulation cascade. There are two primary types of hemophilia: A and B. Both types of hemophilia are rare, with only a combined frequency of about 1 in 5000 live births. Of the two types, hemophilia A is about four times more common. In the intrinsic arm of the coagulation cascade, factor VIII serves as a cofactor for factor IX. They cooperate to activate factor X, leading to the formation of fibrin.

After listening to this AudioBrick, you should be able to:

You can also check out the original brick on Hemophilia from our Hematology collection, which is available for free.

Learn more about Rx Bricks by signing up for a free USMLE-Rx account: www.usmle-rx.com

You will get 5 days of full access to our Rx360+ program, including nearly 800 Rx Bricks.  After the 5-day period, you will still be able to access over 150 free bricks, including the entire collections for General Microbiology and Cellular and Molecular Biology.

***

If you enjoyed this episode, we’d love for you to leave a review on Apple Podcasts.  It helps with our visibility, and the more med students (or future med students) listen to the podcast, the more we can provide to the future physicians of the world.

Follow USMLE-Rx at:

Learn how you can access over 150 of our bricks for FREE: https://usmlerx.wpengine.com/free-bricks/

Pain is a sensation that warns of potential injury and alerts the person to avoid or treat it. For example, if you touch a hot object, you will feel pain and immediately remove your hand from that object, protecting your hand from further damage. As much as pain can burden and torment, ultimately it is an essential part of our bodies’ mechanisms of self-preservation.

Pain can be mild or severe, constant or intermittent, sharp or dull. Sometimes it can even be hard to describe the uncomfortable sensation in words. Nevertheless, clinicians always ask their patients to describe their pain. Why? Because its characteristics can help us better determine the mechanism behind a patient’s pain.

In the clinic, the patient’s subjective experience of pain can be crucial to arriving at the correct diagnosis and treatment. For this reason, understanding the different kinds of pain and their underlying biology is an essential building block of foundational clinical knowledge.

There is no standard system of classifying pain. In this discussion, we will classify the five main types of pain as nociceptive, breakthrough, inflammatory, neuropathic, and functional.

After listening to this AudioBrick, you should be able to:

You can also check out the original brick on Pain Mechanisms from our Neurology and Special Senses collection, which is available for free.

Learn more about Rx Bricks by signing up for a free USMLE-Rx account: www.usmle-rx.com

You will get 5 days of full access to our Rx360+ program, including nearly 800 Rx Bricks.  After the 5-day period, you will still be able to access over 150 free bricks, including the entire collections for General Microbiology and Cellular and Molecular Biology.

***

If you enjoyed this episode, we’d love for you to leave a review on Apple Podcasts.  It helps with our visibility, and the more med students (or future med students) listen to the podcast, the more we can provide to the future physicians of the world.

Follow USMLE-Rx at:

Learn how you can access over 150 of our bricks for FREE: https://usmlerx.wpengine.com/free-bricks/

As we eat, our gastrointestinal (GI) system releases a host of both local and distant regulators to control the process of digestion. We will begin with the primary hormones, then cover some of the secondary hormones, and lastly discuss how our body senses its intraluminal contents and then subsequently integrates all of the various stimuli it receives.

After listening to this AudioBrick, you should be able to:

You can also check out the original brick on Gastrointestinal Regulatory Substances  from our Gastrointestinal collection, which is available for free.

Learn more about Rx Bricks by signing up for a free USMLE-Rx account: www.usmle-rx.com

You will get 5 days of full access to our Rx360+ program, including nearly 800 Rx Bricks.  After the 5-day period, you will still be able to access over 150 free bricks, including the entire collections for General Microbiology and Cellular and Molecular Biology.

***

If you enjoyed this episode, we’d love for you to leave a review on Apple Podcasts.  It helps with our visibility, and the more med students (or future med students) listen to the podcast, the more we can provide to the future physicians of the world.

Follow USMLE-Rx at:

Learn how you can access over 150 of our bricks for FREE: https://usmlerx.wpengine.com/free-bricks/