does anyone feel like their pathology course is worhtless for the USMLE?

[reedman]

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it seems like my pathology course forces me to spend at least 50% of my time studying material that is only relevant to sub-specialists in pathology. i'm talking about minutia that never show up in first aid, goljan, or question banks. in my opinion some of the lecturers are just trying to show us how hard their area of expertise is rather than teaching us pathology that is relevant to the vast majority of physicians.

does anyone else feel this way? perhaps my school sucks?

 

[dude1344]

Sorry to hear that, but my general pathology block was excellent, thanks to our instructor. Excellent lectures, and organized notes.

But other courses I know what you mean lol.

 

[MossPoh]

If it is beyond the scope of Robbins you have problems. Otherwise, it is just more detail for tests. The extra details will be the first to go. Hopefully what is left is that stuff in FA and Goljan.

 

[hurdlepup]

Funny story: Kumar (the author of Robbins) came to talk at our school a little while back. One of my fellow MS-2s brought her book for Kumar to sign. So, Kumar sees the tabs and highlighting the student has been doing and his remark, "You actually read this? You should just pay attention to the things your professors are pointing out in class."

The irony is that our professors all (except our best teaching professor) constantly tell us we have to read big Robbins from cover to cover. And most of them just teach straight from Robbins, without pointing out what is most important--or the stuff they discuss is more directly related the pathological lab techniques, not stuff we need to know.

 

[reedman]

^ i'm pretty sure pathology lecturers want everyone to think that pathology is the most intellectually challenging and scientifically rigorous specialty. i suspect a lot of this comes from feelings of inadequacy that many pathologists have because they don't fit in with the laypersons concept of what a doctor is/does.

isn't robbins designed to be a comprehensive pathology text, one that pathology residents probably struggle to assimilate? if i had to teach path i would model the course after goljan.

 

[Tiki]

^ i'm pretty sure pathology lecturers want everyone to think that pathology is the most intellectually challenging and scientifically rigorous specialty. i suspect a lot of this comes from feelings of inadequacy that many pathologists have because they don't fit in with the laypersons concept of what a doctor is/does.

isn't robbins designed to be a comprehensive pathology text, one that pathology residents probably struggle to assimilate? if i had to teach path i would model the course after goljan.

Um, no.

I don't read Robbins as a pathology resident (it's a med student text book), we have much more inclusive text books (2 volume sets, Sternberg's Diagnostic Surgical Pathology). Robbins only goes over bare bones surgical pathology. I will say that some residents probably use the first 8 chapters or so to go over general pathology stuff when it comes time to take the boards, as our surgical pathology textbooks assume we know that stuff coming in to residency.

And I don't think most pathologists have inadequacy issues. I think the majority of us are thankful we don't have to deal with non-compliant hypertensive diabetics. (Personally, I'm also thankful I don't have overnight call or 8 hour rounding.)

Maybe the pathologists who teach you are just tired of whiny med students who complain and just want the shortest route to an honors or an A+ on the boards? 🙄

 

[hurdlepup]

Maybe the pathologists who teach you are just tired of whiny med students who complain and just want the shortest route to an honors or an A+ on the boards? 🙄

No, I think its just that most of them have no idea how to teach. Not because they aren't very bright people--but because no one has ever taught them how to teach. Therefore, they are not very metacognitive when it comes to learning.

Its probably not their fault as much as the system that throws people out there who know their subject matter well, but not how to present it in a meaningful way. I recognize this is present in most fields once you get into more specialization it is harder to find people who can both teach and have an understanding of what they are teaching.

Anyway, if any of you ever teach, don't be to proud to ask someone who gets good reviews as an instructor for pointers when you start out. You might end up being the next Goljan, you never know! I'm sure someone mentored him at some point.

 

[Mace1370]

No, I think its just that most of them have no idea how to teach. Not because they aren't very bright people--but because no one has ever taught them how to teach. Therefore, they are not very metacognitive when it comes to learning.

Its probably not their fault as much as the system that throws people out there who know their subject matter well, but not how to present it in a meaningful way. I recognize this is present in most fields once you get into more specialization it is harder to find people who can both teach and have an understanding of what they are teaching.

Anyway, if any of you ever teach, don't be to proud to ask someone who gets good reviews as an instructor for pointers when you start out. You might end up being the next Goljan, you never know! I'm sure someone mentored him at some point.

This just applies to all teachers in medical school, not specifically teachers of pathology. I would say that on the whole the teachers I have for pathology have been very good.

That said, our course director does push Big Robbins incredibly hard and is constantly reminding us how important it is to read the whole thing. Then he makes statements in his lectures like, "If I was a student reading this chapter I would have no idea what was important and what wasn't" so... 😕

 

[reedman]

A+ on the boards? what country are you from?

Um, no.

I don't read Robbins as a pathology resident (it's a med student text book), we have much more inclusive text books (2 volume sets, Sternberg's Diagnostic Surgical Pathology). Robbins only goes over bare bones surgical pathology. I will say that some residents probably use the first 8 chapters or so to go over general pathology stuff when it comes time to take the boards, as our surgical pathology textbooks assume we know that stuff coming in to residency.

And I don't think most pathologists have inadequacy issues. I think the majority of us are thankful we don't have to deal with non-compliant hypertensive diabetics. (Personally, I'm also thankful I don't have overnight call or 8 hour rounding.)

Maybe the pathologists who teach you are just tired of whiny med students who complain and just want the shortest route to an honors or an A+ on the boards? 🙄

 

[The Coon]

Funny story: Kumar (the author of Robbins) came to talk at our school a little while back. One of my fellow MS-2s brought her book for Kumar to sign. So, Kumar sees the tabs and highlighting the student has been doing and his remark, "You actually read this? You should just pay attention to the things your professors are pointing out in class."

The irony is that our professors all (except our best teaching professor) constantly tell us we have to read big Robbins from cover to cover. And most of them just teach straight from Robbins, without pointing out what is most important--or the stuff they discuss is more directly related the pathological lab techniques, not stuff we need to know.

At my school we don't even have lectures for path; they simply tell us to read robbins and let us know that everything in the book is testable. Nothing like paying 50grand to do something i could have done for 50bucks. I still prefer this than having to assimilate through poorly organized lectures though.

 

[Raryn]

At my school we don't even have lectures for path; they simply tell us to read robbins and let us know that everything in the book is testable. Nothing like paying 50grand to do something i could have done for 50bucks. I still prefer this than having to assimilate through poorly organized lectures though.

At my school, path is better than most courses when it comes to that.

Don't even get me started on how worthless the microbiology course is though.

 

[MilkmanAl]

Path was quite poor here at UAMS in terms of board prep. I totally gave up on it halfway through the year and just read Goljan.

 

[Tiki]

A+ on the boards? what country are you from?

I was being sarcastic. 🙄

I was born in Jersey, although I suppose some might feel that is another country.

 

[reedman]

ah, my sarcasm meter might be a little funked up right now.

anyway, i wasn't trying to dog on pathologists everywhere . i was just bitching about the department at my school. didn't mean to offend.

 

[hurdlepup]

I would just like to applaud this week's parade of pathologists. Very well done at explaining stuff and pointing out the meat and potatoes in Robbins this week! I thought that if I was gonna complain earlier, I might as well also point out when they do well!!

 

[fahimaz7]

We follow robbins almost to the dime.

 

[tco]

^ i'm pretty sure pathology lecturers want everyone to think that pathology is the most intellectually challenging and scientifically rigorous specialty. i suspect a lot of this comes from feelings of inadequacy that many pathologists have because they don't fit in with the laypersons concept of what a doctor is/does.

isn't robbins designed to be a comprehensive pathology text, one that pathology residents probably struggle to assimilate? if i had to teach path i would model the course after goljan.

To the first part: Ignorance is bliss.

To the second: You would model it after whatever the course directors/deans told you to model it after.

 

[st2205]

I've learned more path in the medicine course than the path course.

 

[ArcGurren]

My school teaches maybe 60-70% of the path details relevant to the boards but they cover 100% of the actual path content in terms of systems... which basically means that they teach a lot of extra crap which is never tested on the boards but is written in Robbins or some other esoteric text.

Also about the Robbins bashing... the book isn't that bad IMO it's just a little extra dense and not every detail does get tested on the Step 1 to my understanding.

As far as why not every school teaches to the boards... I don't necessarily agree with the policy but a lot of schools feel that in order to teach their students they need a unique REASON for the students to be coming there. For example, we had a number of lectures on liver transplantation and the procedure involved... now on the boards do they really give a crap about the procedure of liver transplantation? No. The most they expect you to know is the immunology behind graft rejection (i.e. things like hyperacute/acute/chronic rejection) because transplant surgery is a subspecialty. However because we are known for our transplant service we have a number of people who lecture on it. It's an ego-stroking for the school and little can be done about it.

I also agree that not all clinicians can teach... and many of them are forced to because the school tells them to. It's unfortunate but a medical school can't afford to have full time professors who are only there to teach. First of all nobody wants to do that and secondly it's not particularly profitable. So although everyone wishes we could have this utopia where every school teaches towards the boards and all the professors referenced Goljan like it's the holy text, that's life.

 

[Mace1370]

The best solution is to do away with school specific tests and just use NBME shelf exams. That way education could be standardized and the first two years of school could be compared between students far easier than they are now.

 

[JokerMD]

asdf

 

[hurdlepup]

The best solution is to do away with school specific tests and just use NBME shelf exams. That way education could be standardized and the first two years of school could be compared between students far easier than they are now.

As long as there were enough questions, I would be all for this. I've heard from a certain faculty member that a substantial portion of our questions get written within a 2-3 day cram session before the test is given to us. This leads to bad (poorly worded) questions--and we RARELY get points back for these atrocities.