Anatomy reality check

Started by djmcheme
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djmcheme

Full Member
10+ Year Member
Umm...wow. Anatomy is a big slap in the face to someone who is used to not having to study much and getting very good grades. Maybe that's why they put it first in most med schools?
 
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I'd imagine they put it first because if the first thing they gave you was the core of micro biochem and physiology simultaneously you'd probably go get some rope and find a nice tree.
 
engineeredout said:
I'd imagine they put it first because if the first thing they gave you was the core of micro biochem and physiology simultaneously you'd probably go get some rope and find a nice tree.
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I don't get it my med school is simultaneously teaching me micro, biochem, physiology and anatomy...
 
elyswim said:
I don't get it my med school is simultaneously teaching me micro, biochem, physiology and anatomy...
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slowly.

We got slammed with gross and histo for 13 weeks. Just about the time you get your pants all the way down...

And I agree 100% with above. If they didn't start with an easier, more tactile course like gross, the attrition rate would be huge, and dental school applications would skyrocket.
 
I started with an 8-week block of micro and biochem and strongly preferred both of them to gross. If I'd started with 13 straight weeks of nothing but anatomy, I probably would've quit school. I thought it was a much harder class than everything else first year, but perhaps that's because straight memorization just is not my thing. Gross offers little else besides than that.
 
Welcome to medical school.

Remember though that being in anatomy lab, you're getting to do things and see things that many, many, many people never will.

How many people can say they sawed a face in half for educational purposes?
 
Agreed Rollo,

What an honor but still a formidable task. I am glad my grandmother forced me into this at an early age.
 
Rollo said:
Welcome to medical school.

Remember though that being in anatomy lab, you're getting to do things and see things that many, many, many people never will.

How many people can say they sawed a face in half for educational purposes?
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Meh. The fact that not many people do it doesn't make it intrisically rewarding or amazing by default. Telling people you sawed a face in half is pretty cool, though. 😛
 
dude1344 said:
😕
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To make a long story short my grandmother was very rich and knew someone high up in the Pitt med school about 25 years ago. She bequeathed a very very large sum of money to them in exchange for "special consideration" when her 2 grandchildren applied. My sister was smart and finished 10 years ago. I decided to be a rebel and refuse to do what was expected of me. Well here I am 35 and a Freshman in medical school. It took a while to grow up but I did.
 
MilkmanAl said:
Anatomy just sucks. [bold]There's next to no learning to be done. [/bold]Get through it, and forget that everything but the big stuff exists.
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the minutia...sure. but there are tons of great clinical correlates...learning how to do post/ant drawer tests, listening to heart sounds, lung sounds, etc, all that stuff is great.

Do you need to know every branch of every vein? no....never


For a guy going for ortho- I treat the musculoskeletal portion like everything is sacred.
 
To be perfectly honest the anatomy lab is about the last place on earth I actually want to be. But I'll get through it.
 
I liked being able to tell people that I took apart a ribcage with a pair of wire cutters. There was also awesomeness in cutting open the atherosclerosed femoral and carotid arteries and removing plaques
 
one of the groups in my class had an old guy with a severly enlarged prostate...not all of the fluid from his bladder was removed...haha nice surprise for them
 
I'm in a similar position, I never took anatomy in undergrad and kind of regret it now, even if undergrad anatomy is a joke. Anatomy/embry with lab along with histo/cell bio and lab is kind of tough for a newly transitioned undergraduate.

But yeah the only way I pull myself out of self pity is that it's only 3 more months and then I'm done! I get so excited knowing the end is nigh!! wuahaha
 
One of the cadavers in my bay had a penis pump. The instructor had a little bit too much fun win it, haha.

Anatomy was a lot of work, but it didn't seem to bother me as much as others. At the time it felt a lot more relevant to me than biochem.
 
I wish our cadaver had a penis pump that would be friggin awesome! I would pump that up everytime the little hotties walk by.
 
MilkmanAl said:
Meh. The fact that not many people do it doesn't make it intrisically rewarding or amazing by default. Telling people you sawed a face in half is pretty cool, though. 😛
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Yeah but I think it is rewarding to some extent because of this. I mean, we memorize a ton of useless minutia in so many classes, I thought it was cool to be studying anatomical minutia and then get to go to the lab, find a body, and dissect out that thing I hadn't seen before. The rarity makes it cool. (..and those head dissections rocked my world)

The thing about lab for me is that for the majority of the class I really didn't like being there. I don't know why, I just felt that it sucked in general. And then with all the minutia piled on top, studying that anal triangle, it can really suck. But I think maybe there's a desensitization that happens unconsciously when you clock enough hours in there, and it becomes fun somehow. Maybe it's all the formaldehyde fumes 😎
 
djmcheme said:
I wish our cadaver had a penis pump that would be friggin awesome! I would pump that up everytime the little hotties walk by.
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The cadaver next to mine had one.... when they pumped it up they realized they didnt know how to make it go back down. That guy had wood for over a week, haha
 
formaldehyde makes me cry everytime i walk into the anat lab.. it kinda sucks.. the learning part is fun but the total opposite when it comes to the exam part.. 🙂
 
That is somebody's loved one who gave their own body for your education. Show some respect.
 
I have been a TA/Tutor for gross anatomy at my local health science center for two years, so you could say that I have been around the smell for a while. I completely agree with most of your previous statements. Gross Anatomy is a tough subject because all of the information is new and there really is no shortcut to the dissection process. Part of my enjoyment is derived from this same reason. Everyone is put on the same playing field. It doesn't matter what ivy league or community college education you received prior, you still have to dig through fatty tissue to find structures. For the most part, there is none of the "I took it in college" mentality.
One of the most remarkable things to me is visually seeing how the human body is constructed. I admire it as I would a painting in a museum. Plus now I never have to pay money to go see body worlds.
 
MilkmanAl said:
I started with an 8-week block of micro and biochem and strongly preferred both of them to gross. If I'd started with 13 straight weeks of nothing but anatomy, I probably would've quit school. I thought it was a much harder class than everything else first year, but perhaps that's because straight memorization just is not my thing. Gross offers little else besides than that.
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Then you're in luck, because my school starts with an 8-week block of gross/histo with cell bio and embryology mixed in. 🙁 Doing anatomy in 8 weeks is cramtacular enough, but with all the other crap...ARG 😡
 
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