-BMP (biomedical problems) = PBL?
Yes. The BMP, in a more broad sense is what we call the basic sciences of the first two years. It needs a name other than "basic sciences" because it runs in conjunction with two other programs, both unique to Mercer. One is Clinical Skills, the other is Community Medicine. Neither are as important as the BMP, but you are assessed in both. It may be important to know about both programs, so if you want a better description, we can discuss that in greater detail later.
-phase brief outline of phases pls
The BMP is divided into 12 "phases" spread over your first two years (6 first year, 6 second year). At a traditional lecture based school like MCG, the first semester of your first year might consist of 18 weeks of classes in Gross Anatomy, Biochemistry, Physiology, etc. (not sure what all they take). At Mercer, every basic science phase is divided up and split over the 12 phases. Thus, even at the end of your second year you're still seeing biochemistry. Because the phases are geared towards a particular topic some are more heavily devoted to one, but all appear throughout your first two years. This has its ups and downs. Some argue that they'd rather learn 3 or 4 disciplines really well at one time rather than learn 10 or 11 in small chunks. I like it because when I get ready to review for boards I'm still seeing material that most students haven't seen in a year and a half.
-MDE (multi-discipline exam) *exams for PBL?
Exactly. Each phase consists of 9 or 10 disciplines. All will be tested. For example, Phase A (your first phase) will consist of biochemistry, cell biology, histology, pathology, physiology, pharmacology, genetics, microbiology, virology, and maybe a couple others. At any medical school, the amount rather than the inherent difficulty of the information is what's going to make or break you. At Mercer, the amount of material in any one discipline per phase is never that great but there are so man disciplines in which you must learn some about. Take your fourth phase, Hematology, for instance. Based on the name of the phase you can imagine how much you'll learn about blood, hematopoiesis, the cell bio and histology of blood cells, etc. Just about the time you realize you're starting to get all that, you realize that for path you need to know ALL of the leukemias and lymphomas. I'm talking age and incidence, predisposed populations, presenting symptoms, grading/staging, prognosis, how to recognize on Wright stain, and genetics/cell markers (for example, you'll need to know that Burkitt lymphoma is associated with an 8;14 chromosomal translocation).
with the MCG secondary in two weeks later
