For those who have already taken or taking gross anatomy, how much time and effort did you devote to it? For me right now, it's crazy, it has basically become my life. I spend around 12 hours a day stuyding and still am behind. On dissection days, it's even worse. Is this normal?
I never worked so hard before, and it feels like everyday it's studying for a final exam. And yet, I'm so afraid I might fail my first exam in couple of weeks (60% is passing). I get sweat spells whenever I think about failing (a lot of the time).
It's just so much info to memorize and commit to memory, and after a while, all the terms and locations, nerves, bones, muscles, blood vessels just kind of blend into each other in my thoughts, and everything gets confusing.
I'm already kind of getting depressed and it's only couple weeks into med school. All I do all day is study in the library, and yet things aren't sticking in my head.🙁 Anyone had similar experience in gross anatomy?
OP, don't be depressed. Anatomy has the potential to totally overwhelm. And, the learning curve is really steep for every exam. I always hated the thing we were learning about initially, all the minutia, and then ended up liking it in the end after it was over. But, if ALL you're doing is studying ALL DAY in the library, I'd suggest putting away the books for a couple hours a day to exercise or get some sanity. It definitely relieves stress and helps out somehow. I always found I was much more efficient at memorizing when I relaxed a little and had some fun on the side. As a side note, it may actually make people smarter to read about novel things regularly, and to exercise ...there is data that shows upregulation of brain derived neurotrophic factor in the hippocampus
🙂 MS1 is a marathon, not a sprint. Don't just try to endure it or even enjoy it, convince yourself you love it.
Regarding anatomy specifically, the norm for hours totally depends on your school's schedule. 12 hours a day would be totally different for a 1 month course than a 5 month course like mine was, so it's hard to know. I could see spending full days every day if it was an accelerated course, but you'd be done with that routine very quickly, obviously. My advice is to spend as much time in the lab as possible. Meaning, learn Netters as well as you can (or whatever text/notes you use), but also spend as much time in the lab as possible. You'll see how lab time will make Netters time more efficient, and it won't really add time to your routine. Also, sometimes I basically went to the lab for study breaks before exams. The learning is so different that while all the material is the same, it's like the part of your brain that's studying is not.
Regarding lab work, the learning is not a book/atlas/mnemonic type thing, it's all about getting an intuitive feel for the way the nerves and vessels look at certain places. The lingual nerve just looks a little different in size and shape than the hypoglossal, for example, and each of these are different than the glosopharyngeal. But you have to spend time staring in those bodies, with some knowledge from Netters and with some other students who have dissected, to notice those things. When you go back to Netters, you'll be picturing the cadavers and not the drawings. Thats what made anatomy fun for me. But I didn't figure it out until the end.
The lab is an amazing opportunity and learning experience, but it feels slow and inefficient while you're in there. It's easy to think that Netters is all you need to know and you could figure out the anatomy based on that during a practical, and that's what I thought and did successfully for half the course, but I murdered it (and started enjoying it more) once I figured out that you actually do learn when you're in the lab. It's just a totally different style of learning that I was uncomfortable and impatient with at first.
Just my 2 cents.
