Hello all!
I start medical school in August, and plenty of my medical school friends have told me to start studying now to prepare for medical school. I'm getting a lot of "study anatomy" and "study embryology" and now I want to hear your opinions. If you had to choose one class that you wish you knew more about before medical school, what would it be?
People who say study anatomy and embryo (I just finished those two as well) strike me as being short sighted at the moment. The reason being that having just transitioned to Biochem/Physio, (the classes are a 180 degree turn from Anatomy and I'm loving it). I really despised Anatomy (embryo was cool and histology was ok)...anyways, the point is studying anatomy in undergrad won't change anything. I was an Anatomy TA in undergrad and was just average overall (terrible at practicals) in Anatomy. I'd even argue that it's a minute disadvantage because having learnt something and then expecting it again but then having it delivered to you in a new format can be disorienting. I wish I would have done the following:
1. Majored in Applied Mathematics or Computer Science:
Any sheep can learn basic medical science. Learning the aforementioned allows you to be a leader/innovator in the field of medicine. Many research positions are looking for people with skills like programming and mathematics is cool because it gives you the deepest understanding about any quantative stuff you learn in biochem or physio plus it goes hand in hand with discovery in science. I did take a Intro to Programming Course during my senior year of college on top of my Human Biology major, but didn't really take it seriously.
2. On top of the aforementioned majors, I would have taken Spanish:
Communicating with patients, etc.
Some biology decisions I am happy with:
I learnt physiology/biochemistry/genetics at quite an nice level in undergrad and am happy about that. It gave me a context which I'm taking to medical school and I know somethings will stick better now.
Some decisions I am unhappy with:
Cell Biology/Immunology/Clinical Chemistry/ANATOMY/Neuroscience
I didn't even realize what anatomy was in undergrad and thought I liked it. What I liked about it was the dumbed down physiology taught as a component as well as the clinical correlate. All the pointless minutae I was glad we didn't have to know for undergrad anatomy turned out to be what's taught in med school. Undergrad anatomy is pointless. Ya, you might know the names of the cranial nerves a few weeks before everyone else does, but once you are done with the 20 minutes of lecture, that advantage will be neutralized.
As for cell biology, it was memorization for the sake of it. Who cares which proteins are O-linked, N-linked, in undergrad. Wait until your first lecture of Biochem to get that.
Neuroscience sounds cool and conceptual, but we know so little about the brain that the only definitive thing you'll probably learn (if you didn't have it repeated in a 100 other classes) was membrane potentials, nernst equations, chemical synapses, etc. Touch/Taste/Hearing are interesting, but then you'll likely start learning about various things like memory/learning/etc. but will realize that a lot of the stuff is not conclusive and you'll find yourself asking yourself what exactly the amygdala/PFC/etc. do. The stuff is just so up in the air at this point...You know when people say that in 5-10 years textbooks become irrelevant...right now in neuroscience it's more like 2-3 years.
Tl;Dr:
Biochemistry, Physiology (make sure it covers cellular aspects likes channels-that's what is taught in med school), and Genetics are good undergrad classes to take along with your standard BCPM. If you can squeeze these in along with a major in something like engineering/computer science/mathematics, DO IT!