Biochem: Undergrad vs. Med School

[Smitty75]

I'm a senior in college and I have been fortunate enough to get an acceptance to a medical school. At this time, I'm in a 2-semester biochemistry class that is quite intensive as it is geared towards chemistry/biochemistry majors.

For those of you who took a similar biochemistry class in undergrand, did you feel like it prepared you at all for biochemistry in medical school?

I ask this question because I'm trying to decide whether it is worthwhile for me to take the second semester of this course or to enroll in another class. Thanks in advance for the input!

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[Street Philosopher]

It definitely helped. I saved about 1-2 hrs that I would have spent memorizing glycolysis or the TCA cycle because surprisingly enough I was able to re-memorize it pretty easily the second time around. That was pretty much the extent of how much it helped me though. Medical school biochem focused on different things than what I learned in undergrad. In undergrad, I had to memorize structures and the chemical reactions, pushing those electrons around, counting carbons & seeing where they go, counting ATPs, etc. In medical school, focus was really on regulation, clinical significance, and other less purely academic aspects of biochemistry. We spent about 2 weeks covering biochem, and I THINK we're done with it for the rest of the year.

Now personally, I don't consider saving 1-2 hrs in medical school worth taking a whole another class in undergrad, but it's your call.

 

[Green912]

It will definitely help. I'm taking biochem right now and it's nice to be able to look at something and remember seeing it before rather then for the first time. Things come at you pretty fast so any familiarity with a subject, not just biochem, is a leg up. Like the above poster said, you get a different, more clinical focus. However everythings stems from the "hard core" science aspect. You won't regret it. Also congratulations.

 

[Bevo]

it did help to a degree.

In my undergrad biochem I spent more time not only memorizing the pathways for glycolysis for instance, but also the structure of each intermediate in the pathway and what kind of reaction was taking place between each.

Med School has a different focus. I spent more time focusing on key regulatory steps, and diseases that affect those steps.

I ended up doing better in med school biochem than undergrad biochem prob because I took the undergrad biochem.

Also lippincott's illustrated biochem book is very goooooooooood.

 

[DW]

Originally posted by Street Philosopher
Now personally, I don't considering saving 1-2 hrs in medical school worth taking a whole another class in undergrad, but it's your call.

i have to agree 1000 percent with this. the focus of med school biochem and undergrad biochem is pretty different, and IMHO I really dont think (unless you can take it pass/fail in undergrad) its worth taking an extra difficult class in college to save yourself a whopping hour or two of studying your first year of med school. you'll get all the biochem and clinically relevant and unrelevant minutia you can stand during MS1.

just get to med school, buy yourself a lippincotts review, it will cover nicely as far as you need to go in med school biochem at most places.

p.s. i'd hold onto whatever text you're using for undergrad biochem, as you might be able to us it in med school. i rarely referred to a textbook unless i was unclear on something, and the texts that med school's "require" can be so freaking dense i cant think of one person who actually read the "assigned" chapters for the course. stryer can eat my @ss

 

[NUcat]

Biochem helped, but not so much that it's worth taking another class for. You've already taken a semester so you probably won't get much out of taking the 2nd half anyway. Whatever you've covered so far will be more than enough detail.

 

[Smitty75]

Thanks for the replies everyone, I appreciate the input

Originally posted by NUcat
Biochem helped, but not so much that it's worth taking another class for. You've already taken a semester so you probably won't get much out of taking the 2nd half anyway. Whatever you've covered so far will be more than enough detail.

You have a good point, however, I think that the stuff coming next semester may be more relevant to medical school. I think I'm just gonna stick it out. Reinforcing good study habits couldn't hurt, right?

 

[Adcadet]

Originally posted by Smitty75
Thanks for the replies everyone, I appreciate the input




You have a good point, however, I think that the stuff coming next semester may be more relevant to medical school. I think I'm just gonna stick it out. Reinforcing good study habits couldn't hurt, right?

I'd skip the second semester and take another class. Have you had immunology? I find that my immunology course in undergrad keeps being mildly useful in various classes (histology, esp). Same with virology (cell bio esp). If you really want to get ahead, get the school's biochem notes and review them. Or pick up a board review book. I'm studying glycolysis, gluconeogenesis, the TCA cycle etc right now, and it's definitely different than what I did in my one semester undergrad biochem class. It would have been much easier for me to have skipped that class and just studied the med school notes.

 

[kaos]

I don't remember anything from undergrad biochem.

 

[rxfudd]

I don't remember anything from med school biochem.

 

[SM-UCLA tech]

i agree with most people above. and yes, the second part of biochem doesn't pertain very much to med school biochem.

i took a full year of biochem in undergrad. but the biochem is slightly different in med school. a lot more clinically oriented obviously.

taking biochem has helped somewhat. it does cut down a little on the studying, but not enough to make a big difference. there is just so much volume that is thrown at you, that it really doesn't impact the amount of time you dedicate. we probably have about 400 pages of notes for our first quarter of biochem. there was no where near that much for the year of biochem in undergrad.