Concept-heavy med school?

[Raiton]

I attend a med school where concepts are heavily stressed in most classes (I know, seems like a dream med school... read on ). An example of this is microbiology: we don't have to memorize a single drug from the four generations of cephalosporins, only know that higher generations = better gram negative coverage, 4th generation = good at both positive and negative.

Moreover, even classes like gross anatomy that are typically based in memorization are not memorization-intensive. Of course we have to know nerves, blood vessels, etc like everyone else but we never get tested on lymphatic system and we don't need to memorize muscle attachments/insertions. We also don't need to know most parts of bones, only major protuberances where 30 muscles attach (though we don't need to know what those muscles are!)

This seems like a great idea, but it leads to a concern of mine: I'm told that the boards is basically ALL memorization. If I'm not memorizing the information now, will I be at a disadvantage later when I don't know a single drug name?

The reason I am slightly concerned is because as I flip through BRS microbiology books or BRS histology books, I can barely answer 1/4 of the questions in the back of each chapter, and these are REVIEW books! I still do well on our exams, so it couldn't be that I'm not understanding, but maybe our school just has a different style?


Raiton

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[doc05]

haha silly question. there are no difficult "concepts" in medicine; hence most schools want you to memorize. at the very least, it allows differentiation between Honors and Pass students.

 

[VienneseWaltz]

An example of this is microbiology: we don't have to memorize a single drug from the four generations of cephalosporins, only know that higher generations = better gram negative coverage, 4th generation = good at both positive and negative.
If I'm not memorizing the information now, will I be at a disadvantage later when I don't know a single drug name?

Raiton

What are you going to do on the wards when you have to order a particular drug, not just "3rd gen cephalosporin"? I barely remember a single drug name from ID, but I memorized them once, so I can memorize them again on my ID rotation. I think it's great when concepts are stressed, as so much specific information changes from year to year, but some things you gotta just know to be a good doc.

Just my $0.02.

 

[Rogue_Leader]

This is something the 3rd and 4th years at your school and answer better than anyone here. They'll know exactly how they had to prepare for the boards, and where the weaknesses were in the 1st and 2nd year classes. Find one of them and ask them. All the rest of us can do is sit around guess how much it might it might affect you from your 2 paragraph description of your carriculum.

 

[missmod]

IMHO, though I haven't taken the boards yet, it probably won't matter very much. The way information is thrown at us first years, it's most likely that the way we are memorizing won't really be long term memorization anyway. You retain the concepts so that when the boards come, you can study hard to memorize the details that you think might be important. I don't think these details will say much about how good of a doctor you will be because when you are treating a patient, you can look up the name of a 3rd generation cephalosporin and it would take maybe an extra minute or so.

Everything you described about the curriculum sounds pretty similar to Penn. For biochem, we didn't even have to memorize pathways--we got a reference sheet with all reactions,enzymes, etc. during our exam.

 

[phoenixsupra]

IMHO, though I haven't taken the boards yet, it probably won't matter very much. The way information is thrown at us first years, it's most likely that the way we are memorizing won't really be long term memorization anyway. You retain the concepts so that when the boards come, you can study hard to memorize the details that you think might be important. I don't think these details will say much about how good of a doctor you will be because when you are treating a patient, you can look up the name of a 3rd generation cephalosporin and it would take maybe an extra minute or so.

Everything you described about the curriculum sounds pretty similar to Penn. For biochem, we didn't even have to memorize pathways--we got a reference sheet with all reactions,enzymes, etc. during our exam.

I agree. And the boards are history for me. Really, most of the details from medschool are not on the boards. In fact there's a whole new set for step 1. I think there are a lot of concepts in medicine. It's just that they're not as easy to teach or examine so they tend to be ignored. The result is that most students are extremely weak conceptually and from what I've seen of residents at my school, it shows. My school is heavy on detail. One month after the courses I have generally forgotten them all. If your school doesn't push that crap on you that's a very good thing. You're not going to miss out on anything when it comes to the boards. You may even do better, what with not being burned out and all.

Someone pointed out that the binge and purge traditional system "at least" divides the class into honors and pass students. I think that's what it does "at most". Unfortunately, we honor those with the most mindless obedience. Not a good idea for what is supposed to be a thinking discipline.

 

[Raiton]

This is not thinking ahead, but I'm not really thinkin about that right now. I heard our school has kinda low average for board scores, so I just don't want to fail

What are you going to do on the wards when you have to order a particular drug, not just "3rd gen cephalosporin"? I barely remember a single drug name from ID, but I memorized them once, so I can memorize them again on my ID rotation. I think it's great when concepts are stressed, as so much specific information changes from year to year, but some things you gotta just know to be a good doc.

Just my $0.02.

 

[Raiton]

Funny you say that because our averages are generally 95% or so. I don't know what my ranking is, but I don't understand how one or two points can be the difference between an A or B

haha silly question. there are no difficult "concepts" in medicine; hence most schools want you to memorize. at the very least, it allows differentiation between Honors and Pass students.

 

[cytoborg]

I went to a very concept-heavy medical school and there are pros and cons. The (supposed) pros are that you will learn how to think about things, i.e. how to approach problems critically and come up with creative solutions, such that you are mentally armed to approach any situation that doesn't fit in a neat little box, which is very important on the wards and in research. Did the curriculum really teach me to do this? Dunno. My personality already has an inclination in that general direction, along with my background (was a humanities major in college, had done quite a bit of basic science research, enjoy ideas and concepts, always want to know the "whys" behind everything, am a big picture kind of person, hate memorization, etc). So someone with a very different type of personality and/or learning style might not like such an approach, or get much out of it. So I would say it depends on the person. I don't feel like I missed out by not memorizing every little drug in pharm. So many new drugs are coming out every single day, that it would be a pointless endeavor anyway...you have to keep learning it as you go along. What happens when you have to order a drug on the wards? They first few times, you will look it up in your handy dandy PDA. After that, bingo, now you know it and won't have to look it up again. Pretty simple. As for anatomy...yes, well, I will admit, I didn't do so well with the anatomy pimping in the OR. But all of us were in the same boat, so it wasn't like it hurt my eval or anything. Had I decided to go into surgery, however, I might have done some remediation in anatomy prior to the start of residency. So that would be a con. On the wards in general, getting pimped on pretty tiny details that I never learned before pretty much sucked, I will not lie. I don't know if this would be better at other places necessarily, but I'm sure our curriculum didn't help. But did I eventually learn what I needed to know? Yes. And the wards were still a lot of fun despite the constant feeling of cluelessness (which, by the 4th year, was much less). As for the boards...yes, it was a little disconcerting, as you mentioned, to open up a review book and realize I didn't know any of it. But the review books are out there - I bought 'em, read 'em, did Kaplan, etc. and did as well as anybody. In fact, people from my school do quite well on the boards. So it doesn't seem to be a handicap in that regard. I think, as at all medical schools, you have to work hard and be self-motivated and make sure you are learning what you need to know.

 

[principessa]

This is comforting. My school also ascribes to the concept-heavy, detail-light philosophy. (Maybe we're all at the same school . . . ) It's good to know that everybody comes out okay in the end.