Frustrated with M1 curriculum

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NontradCA

NontradCA

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First, let me say I am at a DO school. I've noticed that what I do in medical school lately is a lot of busy work. There is more time spent doing BS activities other than lecture, and I don't mean OMM. That is probably what stings me the most. I can't reconcile spending 8 hours a week on these activities (CBL, sim lab) while only spending 2 hours a week in OMM. And I don't even like OMM, it just doesn't make any sense to me.

And believe me, this stuff IS a waste of time. I actually think CBL a is hindering my learning, because of the competitive nature my facilitator has created, and I dread going to it.

It is frustrating to me because we are not learning a lot of pharm, and in a time when the legitamacy of the profession (physicians in general, not just DO), I can't say that our education is anything special. It's all busy work. Honestly, if I had to pay for school myself, Id probably drop out. Are all schools like this?

/rant
 
A lot of medical school seems unnecessarily difficult. Bull**** circlejerk meetings that suck up our time, convoluted and inefficient lectures, exams that test on painfully minute details, inefficient talking head administrators that exist only to make our lives more difficult, idiotic curriculum mandates like CBL, etc.

Whatever, I guess. Head down, one foot in front of the other.
 
I'm an an allopathic school in the midwest, and I myself was just dreading the "peer based learning" biochemistry exercise that I have scheduled for later today. 3.5 hours of wasted time that could have been spent independently studying.
 
I like my curriculum. The group based stuff only takes up perhaps 4 hours a week and lectures are optional. My CBL group is awesome, and we all work on the case beforehand so we can kill it.
 
NontradCA said:
First, let me say I am at a DO school. I've noticed that what I do in medical school lately is a lot of busy work. There is more time spent doing BS activities other than lecture, and I don't mean OMM. That is probably what stings me the most. I can't reconcile spending 8 hours a week on these activities (CBL, sim lab) while only spending 2 hours a week in OMM. And I don't even like OMM, it just doesn't make any sense to me.

And believe me, this stuff IS a waste of time. I actually think CBL a is hindering my learning, because of the competitive nature my facilitator has created, and I dread going to it.

It is frustrating to me because we are not learning a lot of pharm, and in a time when the legitamacy of the profession (physicians in general, not just DO), I can't say that our education is anything special. It's all busy work. Honestly, if I had to pay for school myself, Id probably drop out. Are all schools like this?

/rant
Click to expand...

This all seems really stupid right now (believe I felt the same way, too), but looking back, I remember the material from our team based exercises really, really well. Also, while things like sim labs seem like a waste of time, believe or not, they do provide a foundation to build upon.
 
OP, talking to a lot of physicians in the past, a lot of the info you learn during first two years is basically to get you through boards. My mentor once told me only 3-5% (max) of stuff you learn in undergrad will be relevant to your career, and only 15-20% of stuff you learn as MS1-2 will be relevant for your career. You don't really start learning significant amounts of important things until you start rotations. Basically, I think what you're going through is normal. The point of each stage isn't to prepare you for your career, it's to get you to the next step on the path. Next stage for us is to crush step 1, so I would (and am) try to focus on that instead of preparing you for your career 8 years down the road.


O Grady said:
What's going on with you guys?
Click to expand...

We were supposed to have a week off to take electives or shadow or do whatever and we now have a mandatory bioethics class 3 hours each day where they talk about random stuff that most of us probably won't even encounter (who should get an organ, number of picu beds a hospital should get, etc.). Personally I've liked the majority of our curriculum up until this week since I feel it really is preparing us well for boards. On the other hand, I know a lot of people who don't because stuff is still disorganized and people lose points for stupid things like spelling errors. This week though...
 
Stagg737 said:
OP, talking to a lot of physicians in the past, a lot of the info you learn during first two years is basically to get you through boards. My mentor once told me only 3-5% (max) of stuff you learn in undergrad will be relevant to your career, and only 15-20% of stuff you learn as MS1-2 will be relevant for your career. You don't really start learning significant amounts of important things until you start rotations. Basically, I think what you're going through is normal. The point of each stage isn't to prepare you for your career, it's to get you to the next step on the path. Next stage for us is to crush step 1, so I would (and am) try to focus on that instead of preparing you for your career 8 years down the road.




We were supposed to have a week off to take electives or shadow or do whatever and we now have a mandatory bioethics class 3 hours each day where they talk about random stuff that most of us probably won't even encounter (who should get an organ, number of picu beds a hospital should get, etc.). Personally I've liked the majority of our curriculum up until this week since I feel it really is preparing us well for boards. On the other hand, I know a lot of people who don't because stuff is still disorganized and people lose points for stupid things like spelling errors. This week though...
Click to expand...
I don't see how CBL and sim prepares me for step 1.
 
NontradCA said:
First, let me say I am at a DO school. I've noticed that what I do in medical school lately is a lot of busy work. There is more time spent doing BS activities other than lecture, and I don't mean OMM. That is probably what stings me the most. I can't reconcile spending 8 hours a week on these activities (CBL, sim lab) while only spending 2 hours a week in OMM. And I don't even like OMM, it just doesn't make any sense to me.

And believe me, this stuff IS a waste of time. I actually think CBL a is hindering my learning, because of the competitive nature my facilitator has created, and I dread going to it.

It is frustrating to me because we are not learning a lot of pharm, and in a time when the legitamacy of the profession (physicians in general, not just DO), I can't say that our education is anything special. It's all busy work. Honestly, if I had to pay for school myself, Id probably drop out. Are all schools like this?

/rant
Click to expand...

8 hours of non-lecture material is nothing, and I'm pretty sure every school has something similar as I believe group work is an LCME requirement or something. If you have an issue with your facilitator, consider talking about it with the course director. CBL/PBL/whatever is better for some people than others, just like lectures are better for some people than others. Different learning styles. Just keep your head down and bear through it, it's only 8 hours a week. And there's really no immediate need for an MS1 to learn pharm unless your school is completely systems based and you are doing physio and path now too. Pharm goes hand in hand with those things, not with anatomy and biochem and all those basic sciences that most med schools have in MS1. We do a basic pharm intro course in MS1 but the bulk of it is MS2.

Stagg737 said:
You don't really start learning significant amounts of important things until you start rotations.
Click to expand...

Ehh...not really. You definitely learn a lot in rotations, but it's a different kind of learning and a different kind of "important." You need a solid pre-clinical foundation in order to learn what you need to learn on rotations. If you don't know the physiology, pathology, and pharmacology come 3rd year, you will flounder when it comes to applying that knowledge to patient care. 3rd and 4th year is all about learning what to do and when to do it, but you need to already have the knowledge about why it happened, what it could be, and how you could treat it. I know doctors like to throw out these random percentages of "what they use from pre-clinical" but you use much more than you think you do.
 
Ismet said:
I know doctors like to throw out these random percentages of "what they use from pre-clinical" but you use much more than you think you do.
Click to expand...

Additionally, even if you accept the notion that you only ever end up using 20-30% of what you learned in M1-M2...you don't know for a very long time what that 20% will end up being. So M1s are in a very poor position to predict what they do and don't need to know.
 
NontradCA said:
I don't see how CBL and sim prepares me for step 1.
Click to expand...

They're supposed to give you ways to apply your knowledge? Idk how your school runs sim labs, but we haven't started them yet...CBL is definitely supposed to be a way for you to apply knowledge though (if it's like what I've heard about). It's just about developing critical thinking skills, which are definitely relevant on boards.

Ismet said:
Ehh...not really. You definitely learn a lot in rotations, but it's a different kind of learning and a different kind of "important." You need a solid pre-clinical foundation in order to learn what you need to learn on rotations. If you don't know the physiology, pathology, and pharmacology come 3rd year, you will flounder when it comes to applying that knowledge to patient care. 3rd and 4th year is all about learning what to do and when to do it, but you need to already have the knowledge about why it happened, what it could be, and how you could treat it. I know doctors like to throw out these random percentages of "what they use from pre-clinical" but you use much more than you think you do.
Click to expand...

The way I understood it was just that everything builds. You're probably not going to need to explicitly know that mitochondria are the 'energy factory' of the cell as undergrads are taught. But you need to know that to understand what actually occurs, the molecules that are involved, what happens when there are deficiencies or something gets inhibited, blah blah blah. You're not using the generalized piece of info, but to understand the details that actually matter years down the road or how to apply your knowledge it's an important base. Sound a little more accurate?
 
Pharmacology without a sound understanding of the physiology and pathophysiology you are working with is a pretty damn pointless endeavor IMO. That's why pharm is largely a MS2 course.
 
Ismet said:
unless your school is completely systems based and you are doing physio and path now too.
Click to expand...

It is. And it is hard to put things together with a little bit of basic science here or there, although I'm sure it will all make sense eventually.
 
southernIM said:
Additionally, even if you accept the notion that you only ever end up using 20-30% of what you learned in M1-M2...you don't know for a very long time what that 20% will end up being. So M1s are in a very poor position to predict what they do and don't need to know.
Click to expand...
Yes, but I am saying that I am not getting much learning from group based activities. They tell us it's not for material or presentation or critical thinking skills, but "how to work together". I am not in kindergarten.
 
So many people go through this, so don't feel that you're alone in that way. But seriously, just think about how much bullsh1t you had to wade through just to get where you are now. The laundry list of EC activities (or maybe you really did like pre-med honor society and delivering food to the homeless?), research, organic chemistry, secondary applications, interviews, etc. Did you really think that it would all stop once you got to med school? We just have newer and shinier hoops to jump through.

Go in expecting the massive amounts of bullsh1t and useless information. That way anytime you do actually have a meaningful experience or learn something worthwhile, it'll be that much more significant to you.

I'm dead serious. It works.

(and will likely apply to the rest of your career as well)
 
Stagg737 said:
They're supposed to give you ways to apply your knowledge? Idk how your school runs sim labs, but we haven't started them yet...CBL is definitely supposed to be a way for you to apply knowledge though (if it's like what I've heard about). It's just about developing critical thinking skills, which are definitely relevant on boards.



The way I understood it was just that everything builds. You're probably not going to need to explicitly know that mitochondria are the 'energy factory' of the cell as undergrads are taught. But you need to know that to understand what actually occurs, the molecules that are involved, what happens when there are deficiencies or something gets inhibited, blah blah blah. You're not using the generalized piece of info, but to understand the details that actually matter years down the road or how to apply your knowledge it's an important base. Sound a little more accurate?
Click to expand...


Yes, that is more accurate, but that is different from a doctor telling a frustrated MS1 that he only uses 20% of what he learned in pre-clinical. Nothing on you at all, because I know that a lot of docs say stuff like that, but just trying to clear up some misconceptions. Because then you get the first year that thinks he knows what is important and what is minutiae, like the person a couple weeks ago who thought gram pos/neg was minutiae
 
Like everyone else has said, the things you're feeling are normal. But the thing is, you can't change what mandatory activities your school has you doing. Instead, try to make the most out of them. Right now, you just see PBL/CBL as a waste of time and you probably sit in the room counting down the minutes until you get to leave. Instead, pay attention and try to actively participate. Even if you think you learn better from reading, you'll be surprised how much you can actually learn from other methods when you actually put in some effort and give them a chance.

Bottom line, don't whine and pout about things you can't change. Instead, learn to make the most of whatever situation you're in. It'll be a much better use of your time and you'll probably end up a lot happier.
 
NontradCA said:
I don't see how CBL and sim prepares me for step 1.
Click to expand...
I have no idea what CBL and sim is, but the first 2 years function is more than to just prepare you for Step 1.
 
southernIM said:
Additionally, even if you accept the notion that you only ever end up using 20-30% of what you learned in M1-M2...you don't know for a very long time what that 20% will end up being. So M1s are in a very poor position to predict what they do and don't need to know.
Click to expand...
It's always fun to hear what they think they don't need to know though.
 
Now that anatomy is done for us I'm gonna sleep soooo f'ing much. I might even find time to socialize
 
The BS never ends, you just get used to the smell after a while.

Even many of the things you think are useful, aren't.

If you really want to get depressed, look up the sensitivity and specificity of all those physical exam findings you're learning.

Do all the busy work and pass your exams, but if you really want to learn medicine, remember this:

"Half of what you’ll learn in medical school will be shown to be either dead wrong or out of date within five years of your graduation; the trouble is that nobody can tell you which half–so the most important thing to learn is how to learn on your own."

-Dean Burwell HMS
 
EMDO2018 said:
Now that anatomy is done for us I'm gonna sleep soooo f'ing much. I might even find time to socialize
Click to expand...
Anatomy....you don't know busy work until you get through that crap. Wait till you pick fat out of a cadaver for hours, to find a muscle that is very high yield for boards (sarcasm implied)

But for real, once you learn how to play the game at your school you'll learn how to maximize your time. It'll be fine. Every school has some crap that you have to put up with
 
Last edited:
alpinism said:
The BS never ends, you just get used to the smell after a while.

Even many of the things you think are useful, aren't.

If you really want to get depressed, look up the sensitivity and specificity of all those physical exam findings you're learning.

Do all the busy work and pass your exams, but if you really want to learn medicine, remember this:

"Half of what you’ll learn in medical school will be shown to be either dead wrong or out of date within five years of your graduation; the trouble is that nobody can tell you which half–so the most important thing to learn is how to learn on your own."

-Dean Burwell HMS
Click to expand...
LOL, he was dean in 1935.
 
I don't care about yield, I just wanna pass.
 
Don't worry, MS1's.

The material during MS2 is better (well, more interesting potentially)...and, at least at my school, the "questionable" facets of curriculum appear to be reduced from MS1 levels.

So far MS2 >>MS1. (just missed the fabled ">>>" due to somewhat wild volume of material)

...Looking forward to MS4, and maybe MS3.
 
EMDO2018 said:
Now that anatomy is done for us I'm gonna sleep soooo f'ing much. I might even find time to socialize
Click to expand...

Haha. This is what the people in my class thought when they finished anatomy in MS1. They took like the entire first week "off" after the exam, which was the first week of a 2.5 week long biochem course. Hilarity ensued and many pants were soiled in the end.

But, in all seriousness, you should figure out a way to work in reasonable quantities of sleep and a measured amount of social life because it's impossible to function at a crazy level for all of medical school, much less the rest of your career.
 
1) Why did you delete this from the Osteo forum?

2) My school has similar time wasters, but apparently to a much lesser extent than yours. We have TBL's every week, sometimes a few times per week. For me, TBL = anki time. Keep somewhat engaged with the group, and utilize the time efficiently. I understand it's probably rare that I can get away with that given the format. And don't get me started on OMM, but I call it "anatomy review class" to keep sane.

Honestly, my biggest time waste is anatomy lab. 4-6 hours per week trimming the fat. I understand that we are given a "gift" of having a cadaver to learn on that many don't get the chance to experience. I think it's a grossly outdated teaching tool. No real learning from the cadaver happens until about 48 hours before the exam when the body is finally cleaned up enough to learn from. But that's a discussion for another day....
 
redpanda said:
Haha. This is what the people in my class thought when they finished anatomy in MS1. They took like the entire first week "off" after the exam, which was the first week of a 2.5 week long biochem course. Hilarity ensued and many pants were soiled in the end.

But, in all seriousness, you should figure out a way to work in reasonable quantities of sleep and a measured amount of social life because it's impossible to function at a crazy level for all of medical school, much less the rest of your career.
Click to expand...
All of Biochemistry in 2.5 weeks? That is ridiculous.
 
DermViser said:
All of Biochemistry in 2.5 weeks? That is ridiculous.
Click to expand...

It is ridiculous, especially after having 7 weeks for anatomy. I'm pretty sure the phenomenon she described happens for every class, because I did it too. Also my year we had our anatomy final on a Monday and biochem started at 8am on Tuesday and no one was having that.
 
Ismet said:
It is ridiculous, especially after having 7 weeks for anatomy. I'm pretty sure the phenomenon she described happens for every class, because I did it too. Also my year we had our anatomy final on a Monday and biochem started at 8am on Tuesday and no one was having that.
Click to expand...
dude thats rough, was it 1.5 year curriculum or something? We had anatomy in an 8 week block but we have this entire week off. We have 8 weeks for Biochem too.
 
EMDO2018 said:
dude that rough, was it 1.5 year curriculum or something? We had anatomy in an 8 week block but we have this entire week off. We have 8 weeks for Biochem too.
Click to expand...

We finish MS2 at the end of February and start 3rd year in May. Not exactly 1.5 year but I believe it's shorter than a typical curriculum.
 
I just looked over our block I schedule (8 weeks - biochem, histo, some pharm, and anatomy of the neck, upper limb, chest, and back) and our biochem lectures only made up about 2.5-3 weeks.
 
WillburCobb said:
I just looked over our block I schedule (8 weeks - biochem, histo, some pharm, and anatomy of the neck, upper limb, chest, and back) and our biochem lectures only made up about 2.5-3 weeks.
Click to expand...

Have funnnnnnnnnnn! 😀
 
EMDO2018 said:
I might go into rads, better yet...do you think I should be a doctor? Or go into laboratory science or something?
Click to expand...
Honestly to me, you seem like a real good fit for AP/CP Pathology or Radiology. You remind me of the URM version of Ark, but GuyWhoDoesStuff already mentioned that.
 
Ismet said:
It is ridiculous, especially after having 7 weeks for anatomy. I'm pretty sure the phenomenon she described happens for every class, because I did it too. Also my year we had our anatomy final on a Monday and biochem started at 8am on Tuesday and no one was having that.
Click to expand...
Biochem should get like a month. 2.5 weeks is ridiculous. In that case just make it self-study, give everyone the lectures in video format and have them just show up for the exam. Done and move on.
 
Ismet said:
Yes, that is more accurate, but that is different from a doctor telling a frustrated MS1 that he only uses 20% of what he learned in pre-clinical. Nothing on you at all, because I know that a lot of docs say stuff like that, but just trying to clear up some misconceptions. Because then you get the first year that thinks he knows what is important and what is minutiae, like the person a couple weeks ago who thought gram pos/neg was minutiae
Click to expand...

:eyebrow: Seriously? How could that possibly be construed as minutiae? The professor would have to be pretty incompetent to not emphasize the importance of that...and true. While I'm sure there is plenty of info we learn that we won't use, we don't know what that info is until we actually start practicing/start residency. I just assume that the vast majority of info is somehow relevant and only skip stuff that is obviously moot (like the percentage of primary care physicians in 2012, which actually ended up being a test question...).

DermViser said:
All of Biochemistry in 2.5 weeks? That is ridiculous.
Click to expand...

Ours was 2.5 weeks, and our immuno course was only 2 weeks. Our anatomy/musculoskeletal was also only 4ish weeks long, so I'm not sure why everyone is so shocked about biochem being so short...
 
Mehd School said:
1) Why did you delete this from the Osteo forum?

2) My school has similar time wasters, but apparently to a much lesser extent than yours. We have TBL's every week, sometimes a few times per week. For me, TBL = anki time. Keep somewhat engaged with the group, and utilize the time efficiently. I understand it's probably rare that I can get away with that given the format. And don't get me started on OMM, but I call it "anatomy review class" to keep sane.

Honestly, my biggest time waste is anatomy lab. 4-6 hours per week trimming the fat. I understand that we are given a "gift" of having a cadaver to learn on that many don't get the chance to experience. I think it's a grossly outdated teaching tool. No real learning from the cadaver happens until about 48 hours before the exam when the body is finally cleaned up enough to learn from. But that's a discussion for another day....
Click to expand...

There's no activity in that forum.

I agree that dissection is a pain, but being the one in my group who did the most dissecting I can say that you'll come out with a better understanding.
 
I think people use much more of MS1/2 than they realize. It teaches you the language of medicine, its rules, its grammar, its vocabulary.

The 50-60% that's truly important for YOU will be different from what matters to someone else. Even the rest of it you forget still leaves behind a framework understanding that you can use to re-learn whatever pieces become important later on. I remember one of our senior radiology professors telling us that he and all the other students used to HATE cross-sectional anatomy in the cadaver lab and would often complain that they would never need to know it because they would be seeing whole patients, not just slices of them. And then CTs and MRIs were invented. Hard to say what will be minutiae and what will really matter when we finish training.
 
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