Anyone else hate systemic path?

[keeping-it-real]

---

Members don't see this ad.

I'll preface this by saying that i am stoked about medical school and don't ever regret my decision. But this brings me to my current gripe...

What in the heck is the deal with systemic path? Is there any way they could give us more amounts of possibly useless information? So far i've had three semesters of medical school, including 2/3s of systemic path, and i'm more useless than any half proficient EMT.

What is the point of having us review 300 images of kidney sections and blood smears and lung biopsies, etc? It's cool and all, but is this really useful stuff to be teaching us? Are they trying to make us all become pathologists? I was under the impression that learning useless volumes of information ended with matriculation to med school - boy was i wrong!

I want to be a competent physician, but if i don't know the chromosomal translocation and gene involved in follicular lymphoma, will that make me a bad doctor? Does knowing how to recognize a fluorescent streptococcal IC deposition from other forms of IC deposition really matter? What about an identifying an EM of membranoproliferative glomerulopathy? Something such as whether it's a nephrotic or nephritic system... this seems important... but fluorescence stains and EM?!

So far i've seen 1000 slides of uselss images that i've been forced to memorize... yet i can count on one hand the number of real patients i've interviewed. And i say "real" patients because most of the time we see actors who we're supposed to interview. If i wanted to play acting, i would've moved out to hollywood. Not to mention that when we interview these people... if we don't remember the specific acronym and go through each letter during our interview (as if we are social incompetents) we are marked off regardless of our actual performance.

Maybe i'm the only that feels this way... maybe i'm not. But the fact that i can't go shadow in the ER more often because i'm too busy memorizing useless figures and chromosomal translocations... well... that to me is unacceptable.

-real

 

[QuantumMechanic]

I fully expect to have to memorize a dumptruck full load of stuff that I will find useless in med school. I've heard the expression that the preclinical years are like "drinking out of a fire hydrant."

 

[keeping-it-real]

I fully expect to have to memorize a dumptruck full load of stuff that I will find useless in med school. I've heard the expression that the preclinical years are like "drinking out of a fire hydrant."

maybe an activated charcoal fire hydrant or barium fire hydrant... something dispensing a liquid unnecessary for humans.

it's like forcing you to eat 50lbs of those circular, popcorn-like snacks that have .00005 calories.

 

[Hurricane]

What in the heck is the deal with systemic path? Is there any way they could give us more amounts of possibly useless information? So far i've had three semesters of medical school, including 2/3s of systemic path, and i'm more useless than any half proficient EMT.

What is the point of having us review 300 images of kidney sections and blood smears and lung biopsies, etc? It's cool and all, but is this really useful stuff to be teaching us? Are they trying to make us all become pathologists? I was under the impression that learning useless volumes of information ended with matriculation to med school - boy was i wrong!

No, it's not all useless. While this stuff may not be information you'll use every day, you need to have been exposed to it so that it's in the back of your mind when formulating differential diagnoses. And so that when you see a patient with one of these diseases, you can go read up on it to refresh your memory and augment what you already know, rather than learning it from scratch.

 

[YouDontKnowJack]

it's not useless. but it's a lot of information. and it sucks for those who have chitty memory, like me.

 

[beary]

There certainly is a ton of information to learn in path. But as an M4 going into path, I have the exact opposite perspective - I have felt like clinical stuff is way overemphasized at the expense of basic pathology. I cannot tell you how many times during rotations I hear, "you will need to know how to do *whatever* with your patients, no matter what kind of doctor you are." I won't need to know how to do those things as a pathologist!

You will end up using pathology in almost any specialty (except for maybe psych). Good luck the class! This too will end eventually!

 

[nabeya]

Well you better know that stuff for Step 1 b/c it could be on it and you'll be glad you learned it the first time rather than trying to learn it from a review book.

There certainly is a ton of information to learn in path. But as an M4 going into path, I have the exact opposite perspective - I have felt like clinical stuff is way overemphasized at the expense of basic pathology. I cannot tell you how many times during rotations I hear, "you will need to know how to do *whatever* with your patients, no matter what kind of doctor you are." I won't need to know how to do those things as a pathologist!

You will end up using pathology in almost any specialty (except for maybe psych). Good luck the class! This too will end eventually!

 

[njbmd]

I'll preface this by saying that i am stoked about medical school and don't ever regret my decision. But this brings me to my current gripe...

What in the heck is the deal with systemic path? Is there any way they could give us more amounts of possibly useless information? So far i've had three semesters of medical school, including 2/3s of systemic path, and i'm more useless than any half proficient EMT.

What is the point of having us review 300 images of kidney sections and blood smears and lung biopsies, etc? It's cool and all, but is this really useful stuff to be teaching us? Are they trying to make us all become pathologists? I was under the impression that learning useless volumes of information ended with matriculation to med school - boy was i wrong!

I want to be a competent physician, but if i don't know the chromosomal translocation and gene involved in follicular lymphoma, will that make me a bad doctor? Does knowing how to recognize a fluorescent streptococcal IC deposition from other forms of IC deposition really matter? What about an identifying an EM of membranoproliferative glomerulopathy? Something such as whether it's a nephrotic or nephritic system... this seems important... but fluorescence stains and EM?!

So far i've seen 1000 slides of uselss images that i've been forced to memorize... yet i can count on one hand the number of real patients i've interviewed. And i say "real" patients because most of the time we see actors who we're supposed to interview. If i wanted to play acting, i would've moved out to hollywood. Not to mention that when we interview these people... if we don't remember the specific acronym and go through each letter during our interview (as if we are social incompetents) we are marked off regardless of our actual performance.

Maybe i'm the only that feels this way... maybe i'm not. But the fact that i can't go shadow in the ER more often because i'm too busy memorizing useless figures and chromosomal translocations... well... that to me is unacceptable.

-real

Hi there,
I am always amazed at the "medical school curriculum experts" who have never practiced medicine and thus have NO idea of what is truly useful and not useful in the practice of medicine. These curriculum experts are usually first and second year medical students.

This nice thing about memorizing all those "useless figures and chromosomal translocations" that you can do a "data dump" anytime you want. All of the shadowing in the ER is pretty useless unless you can pass the exams (coursework and boards) that get you to medical school graduation.

After all, you are paying thousands of dollars of tuition money for the privilege of being presented with "useless figures and chromosomal translocations". I am sure that there are more than a few folks who would gladly exchange places with you at any time.

Odd thing is I found nothing in medical school useless. I did my best to take advantage of everything that was presented to me. I may be pretty stupid but I find nothing about the study and practice of medicine useless and I have been at it a while.

njbmd 🙂

 

[keeping-it-real]

Well you better know that stuff for Step 1 b/c it could be on it and you'll be glad you learned it the first time rather than trying to learn it from a review book.

Step 1 is full of this. I'll bet my degree that i'll never need to have memorized the chromosomal translocation of follicular lymphoma.

I'm more than willing to learn, but much of this material is boring and irrelevant.