Assignment:
PART A
Each year, many people get a flu shot to protect themselves from the flu.
Why give flu shots rather than "booster" injections? Why is last year's flu shot ineffective against this year's flu?
As a class, discuss which of the following methods would be the best type of vaccination for fending off the flu, and explain your reasoning:
A. IM (intramuscular) Injection
B. Nasal Spray
C. ID (intradermal) injection
PART B
For this Critical Thinking Exercise, you will answer the following questions using your critical thinking and reasoning skills:
1. In treating a woman for malignancy in the left breast, the surgeon removes some of her axillary lymph nodes. Following surgery, the patient experiences edema of her left arm. Explain why.
2. Anti-B antibodies of a type A mother rarely affect the RBCs of a type B fetus. Yet anti-D antibodies of an Rh- woman sometimes cross the placenta and hemolyze the RBCs of an Rh+ fetus. Explain this difference based on your knowledge of the five immunoglobulin classes.
3. How does the structure of a B cell differ from that of a plasma cell? Explain how their structural difference relates to their functional difference.