I have a quick question. I am talkin to some students in my Orgo 2 class. Everybody seems to want to go to med school. We had a discussion where I told them that your first year they will cram all your undergrad sciences in a short amount of time to help "review". I wanted to know how correct I am. One of my classmates said they teach you all biology and very little to no chem. So my question is during the first year do they cover the basic sciences or just anatomy&physiology? Thanks in advance.
1st year courses
- Thread starter TNhopeful
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depends on which type of curriculum you have (traditional, systems, integrated etc.)
as far as the cramming goes, that's not the case where I'm at and I'm fairly confident that doesn't happen at other schools as well. You'll come across topics that you remember from undergrad, but It won't all be crammed into one block/test with review being the purpose.
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No, they aren't going to be covering basic biology. Some issues may be reviewed briefly as you come to them in courses like cell biology. You won't need to know hardly any organic chemistry. After you pass that class you can completely forget what an Sn2 reaction is and it will never matter again. You will take biochem in medical school and will be memorizing some pathways, but not at the level of structure. There may be some review of basic/physical chemistry types of calculations as they need to be used.
So, basically, I'd say on a scale of 1 to 10 you are at about a 3 on correctness in my opinion.
So, basically, I'd say on a scale of 1 to 10 you are at about a 3 on correctness in my opinion.
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There is absolutely an emphasis on physiology. Biochemistry is somewhat important, but it's not in depth at all compared to what i learned in undergrad, which I have completely forgotten .
There is no chem, especailly not organic chem, except for a little bit of acid base stuff, but basically no calculations needed.
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I would say this is generally incorrect. The first year of medical school you'll take basic science courses, but it won't usually be the same stuff you learned in undergrad and it's certainly not to "help review". In most cases, and depending on the particular mix of coursework you did in undergrad, it'll be completely new stuff. All of the courses (in my experience) are very medicine-oriented and don't waste too much time on basic science-y stuff like undergrad (detailed molecular genetics, eg).
In addition, as others have said, many of your undergrad courses won't be covered at all-- organic chemistry and physics for example.
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You are wrong. The "biology" and "chemistry" they teach will be almost entirely basic physiology, and of that only bits and pieces would have been covered in basic pre-med curriculum (though you may have a little more if you had some bio classes like vertebrate physiology). You need a fundamental understanding of some basic bio/chem/physics things, but I'd venture >90% of the things you learned in college you will never see again.
Moving to pre-allo.
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Our first year courses (names/organization varies between schools):
Anatomy, Biochemistry, Genetics, Cell Biology/Pathology, Immunology, Microbiology, Neuroscience, Psychiatry
There is no need for organic chemistry after you finish the MCAT, and the only physics we've had was a brief allusion to circuits in neuro that wasn't even emphasized. First year med is basically a bunch of upper level bio classes shoved into 9 months.
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I think the assumption in medical school is that students already understand the basic important concepts from these undergrad glasses. If something comes up where you're learning something but maybe the underlying concepts are a bit rusty, I'd say you're generally going to be expected to review these for yourself.
