Complex orgo mechs suck!

[realruby2000]

Oh man....i really hate these mechs...they're so long...so boring...so pointless. Does anyone know if I'll have to put up with memorizing long ass mechanisms in med school biochem or pharmacology?. am i going to have to know exactly how TPP decarboxylates alpha keto acids? im studying for my orgo 2 exam and it sucks sooo much, i pray that i dont have to put up with this again

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[Starflyr]

You'll have to know, in general, how things work (TCA cycle, etc) but no, you will probably not be required to draw out the exchange of electrons unless your professor is sadistic. If you ever REALLY need to know something at that level of detail in your future practice, well, that's what books are for!

Star

 

[guardian]

We didn't have to draw out structures or draw out mechanisms. We just had to recognize given structures or reactions. There is alot to remember even with a biochemistry background. It'd sometimes be frustrating, spending several hours remembering a pathway and having only one question on it.

 

[Fix-it-Man]

For me, Biochem: understand & memorize pathways and the interconnectedness of metabolic pathways, most importantly the relevance of pathways and cycles and systems to human diseases. No organic chemical mechanisms. Familiarity with structures of amino acids, sugars, and lipids.

Pharm: understand the pharmacokinetics, pharmacodynamics, mechanism of action (which takes into account some basic understanding of the chemistry of analogues, transition states, active sites of enzymes)liver metabolism, and excretion of various chemotherapeutic agents. KNOW some structures, for the boards, of families of drugs, not individual ones, notably antibacterials and antivirals...Organochemical mechs, NO!!

Retain orgo mechs for the MCAT through there maybe one or two Sn1 or E1 questions although you're more likely going to get NMR spectrums.

Good Luck!!!!!!!

 

[realruby2000]

what exactly is pharmacokinetics, and pharmacodynamics ?

 

[cchoukal]

you won't have to know orgo pathways, but it's good practice for the metabolic and signaling pathways you WILL have to know... Right now we're doing the MAP-kinase pathway, and there's about a dozen relavent proteins and everything's interconnected to something else. Ish.

 

[Fix-it-Man]

Originally posted by realruby2000:
•what exactly is pharmacokinetics, and pharmacodynamics ?•••

I hope this won't be an overkill, but I'll quote from LANGE's Basic & Clinical Pharmacology (1995): "The actions of the drug on body are termed pharmacodynamic processes. They determine the group in the drug which is classified and often play a major role in whether that group is appropriate therapy for a particular symptom or disease...The actions of the body on drug are termed pharmacokinetic processes. They govern the absorption, distribution, and elimination of drugs and are important in the choice and administration of a particular drug for a particular patient..."

 

[Fix-it-Man]

"...the group in which the drug is classified..."

 

[turtleboard]

Originally posted by realruby2000:
•Oh man....i really hate these mechs...they're so long...so boring...so pointless. Does anyone know if I'll have to put up with memorizing long ass mechanisms in med school biochem or pharmacology?. am i going to have to know exactly how TPP decarboxylates alpha keto acids? im studying for my orgo 2 exam and it sucks sooo much, i pray that i dont have to put up with this again•••

Without mechanisms, what's the point of learning organic chemistry? To learn that you can get to C by adding A + B, but not know how it got there? Now THAT would be pointless. Such is the way of most of your pharmacologic education -- pointless. In Pharmacology you basically memorize, in my estimate, about 2,500 drugs. You are expected to remember the following things of all 2,500 drugs: mechanism of action, pharmacokinetics, pharmacodynamics, and the worst part, adverse reactions. Why are adverse reactions ridiculous to memorize, but important anyway? Because these adverse reactions, save for a few that are associated with just a few drugs, are NONSPECIFIC. More than half of the drugs you're gonna study as a med student cause nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea. And then you'll have some professor, who on some exam, will ask a question, "Of the following drugs, which does not cause nausea, vomiting, or diarrhea?"

 

[realruby2000]

Originally posted by turtleboard:
•

Without mechanisms, what's the point of learning organic chemistry? To learn that you can get to C by adding A + B, but not know how it got there? Now THAT would be pointless. Such is the way of most of your pharmacologic education -- pointless. In Pharmacology you basically memorize, in my estimate, about 2,500 drugs. You are expected to remember the following things of all 2,500 drugs: mechanism of action, pharmacokinetics, pharmacodynamics, and the worst part, adverse reactions. Why are adverse reactions ridiculous to memorize, but important anyway? Because these adverse reactions, save for a few that are associated with just a few drugs, are NONSPECIFIC. More than half of the drugs you're gonna study as a med student cause nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea. And then you'll have some professor, who on some exam, will ask a question, "Of the following drugs, which does not cause nausea, vomiting, or diarrhea?"•••


so are u telling me that you have to push electrons in pharm? Thats not what someone else on this board said.

 

[Castro Viejo]

Originally posted by realruby2000:
•
so are u telling me that you have to push electrons in pharm? Thats not what someone else on this board said.•••

No, that's not what I'm telling you.

What I'm trying to say is that what you learn in pharmacology is pointless because it does not involve thinking. The mechanisms you learn in Orgo, and all the electron pushing, is important because it forces you to take simple, very basic concepts and do something incredible.

That's the kind of thing that drew me into medicine in the first place. As I advance in my medical education, I'm coming closer to the realization that thinking takes a back seat to memorization.

 

[Hannibal Gabriel]

Memories of Biochem: there was this giant scary poster we used to walk by in the hallway every day called "Chemical Pathways of the Human Body", and it looked like a New York City road map. We all said, ha, boy, I'm glad I'll never have to memorize THAT whole thing.

Later, as I was exiting my biochemistry final exam with that glazed, hollow-eyed look that a lot of concentration-camp survivors probably would recognize, I looked up at that poster, and I realized with great sadness and irony that, yes, I actually DID know most of that poster.

The moral is: BCH sucks. How did I conceptualize it? Picture a giant wheel in the middle, spinning over and over. That's the Krebs Cycle. Everything either feeds into it somewhere or feeds off it somewhere.

 

[Amra]

All medicine is the clinical application of biochemistry though

 

[Gear]

I couldn't agree more with Tim Wu's comments about memorization! One of my greatest med school disapointments is the realization that mostly (like 95%+) of what it takes to succeed is to memorize long 'grocery lists' of stuff. One of our biochem profs called med school a very "anti-intellectual" process - I agree. After all the hoops I jumped through to get here...
You pre-meds reading this board better make sure you talk to LOTS of med students and really understand what you're getting into! If you think the 1st two years is going to be this great stimulating intellectual adventure, you're in for a rude suprise!

 

[youngjock]

how do you manage to memorize infos about 2500 drugs?!

How long did it take you?

 

[lord999]

For me, two years for the USP-DI (pharmacy student). This is NOT as difficult as it seems, because most drugs work in class action. That is why you actually need to know some mechanisms. (I personally dare the claim that you actually memorized 3500 drugs from a book. Even if that was done, that was a miserable waste of time owing to the fact that dosage forms, therapeutics, and indications change monthly.)

From organic chemistry, you need to take the following things with you:
1. Given a compound, what will it tend to do in vivo? In what condtions?
2. Given a situation, what chemicals will act different than "normal" and why? Can I use this to my advantage?

Definitions:
Pharmacodynamics: The actual functions, mechanisms, and negative functions (toxicology) of a drug substance.
Pharmacokinetics: The study of absorption, how a drug becomes activated and at what concentration, and its elimination.

I'm sorry you have to learn this BS; you won't use most of it. However, I would pay attention to any reaction that happens spontaneously at neutral PH (hydrolysis, the carbohydrate transition game, and shielding mechanisms), because that's how we sneak drugs through.