Any advice on surviving Biochemistry?

[GonnaBeAnMD]

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We just started Biochem yesterday and I'm really overwhelmed. Although that's normal in med school, this is escalated by an additional factor that the teacher expects that we have taken Biochem so - what books do you recommend for a non-science major who only took the prerequisites? I have Lippincotts but seems like I will need more than that to get the basics and concepts down. Thanks a lot 👍

 

[DoctorFunk]

Lippincott's is a great start. I find that this book helps me get a good foundation on each topic, and has some very helpful diagrams. I think beyond a book like that, you might be best served really cramming on your lecture notes. The minute details that each professor will want you to concentrate on will vary, and the best place to find these is in the lecture notes they distribute.

BUT, if you have very little background in chemistry and have no idea what a kinase is, I've heard that the text by Stryer is pretty comprehensive.

 

[orientedtoself]

I really liked drawing out the pathways on a whiteboard. You can fit alot more on a whiteboard than on a sheet of paper. Also, just the act of drawing it out helps cement it in your memory.

 

[Antigunner]

Lippincott's is good for the "big picture" type of stuff. I would also echo that your syllabus/lecture notes will probably be your biggest help for studying. My undergrad biochem course used Garrett and Grisham's Biochemistry, and I thought it was pretty good.

 

[blkkd]

I don't know if anyone else has tried this but it worked well for me. During the lecture as we would go through a pathway such as glycolysis or pentose phosphate pathway I would go through it over and over in my head, enzymes substrates and products, don't slack. So by the time i was studying at home i already knew the pathway and only had to memorize the regulation such as PK is inhibited by alanine...it really makes the entire ordeal less rigorous...

 

[pratik7]

Dont go to class. Skim the lecture once over. Listen to the lecture audio or video as you are following along in the ppt slides and take notes in a seperate notebook. This allows you to pause the lecture if you need to dwell on a concept without missing anything. The notebook serves well for the week before the exam

 

[synapse lapse]

Bring a box of condoms and KY to the exams ... you're gonna need them 👍 I hate this god forsaken class, but in 2 weeks I'll be done!

 

[longhorndoc]

Biochem BRS is wonderful!! It's very straight forward and the I have found the outline format of the book to be great for learning these pathways vs. reading paragraph after paragraph in a textbook and trying to make all of the connections. So far, I have been working through each end of chapter review section before each test....only one more test and a final and this awful class will be over....