Getting rid of the Ochem year?

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MexicanDr said:
I saw this article in the non trad forum and thought it was pretty interesting.

What are your thoughts? Do you guys really think the year of Ochem will ever come to an end?

http://blogs.wsj.com/health/2008/07/16/do-pre-meds-really-need-that-year-of-organic-chemistry/

http://blogs.wsj.com/health/2008/09/16/the-organic-chemistry-backlash-grows/
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Yeah O Chem is pretty useless and you'll learn nothing from it. Same goes for Physics...hell, just make this a contest on strictly physical appearance. I actually may get pretty far in the race.

Seriously though, O Chem is such an important/awesome class that it would be stupid to ever remove as a pre-req. Also, the fact that it filters a bunch of ppl out nationwide makes it better for people who will enjoy the class.
 
OChem is the foundation of biochem. It is not some abstract science whose only function is to weed out weak students. Having said that, they should eliminate parts of it from the premed curriculum, such as Diels-Alder and the rest of C-C bond synthesis, polymers, aromatic reactions, and some random subjects (spectroscopy should stay because it gives the student experience with interpreting abstract data on graphs/charts). It should all be consolidated into one semester, and replace the eliminated one with a requirement of molecular genetics, imo.
 
I think a lot of people undervalue background knowledge. Will you ever need to use O-chem in your medical career? Of course not. Will you ever need to interpret a mass-spec with NMR to find an unknown? Probably never.

Ochem forces you to get out of your comfort zone to learn something completely new. It requires critical thinking skills and helps you sharpen them (which IS helpful in your medical career). Not to mention, without an o-chem background you'd be stupified everytime a lecturer posted a molecule on the powerpoint of a drug.

Sure we don't really need to know o-chem or physics. But then again, what is your definition of a technician? Someone who learns the least possible needed to do their job. As a doctor you don't want to be a technician.
 
ishchayill said:
OChem is the foundation of biochem. It is not some abstract science whose only function is to weed out weak students. Having said that, they should eliminate parts of it from the premed curriculum, such as Diels-Alder and the rest of C-C bond synthesis, polymers, aromatic reactions, and some random subjects (spectroscopy should stay because it gives the student experience with interpreting abstract data on graphs/charts). It should all be consolidated into one semester, and replace the eliminated one with a requirement of molecular genetics, imo.
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oh but I loved Diels-Alder!
 
ishchayill said:
OChem is the foundation of biochem.
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This. You need O Chem background to understand what's going on in biochem. Could you just memorize the relevant reactions in metabolism like glycolysis/krebs/etc and get by? Probably, but I like knowing why the reactions work the way they do, and I think it's easier to understand it than to try and cram a bunch of random, meaningless words and equations into my head.
 
i am not a big fan of orgo at all, but being a non-science major, i feel it is important as only through gen. bio, chem, physics, and orgo (besides the MCAT) can med school admission's compare nonscience majors vs. science majors. Some nonscience majors dont do higher level science courses, so the basic prereq's are the only way to compare applicants of different majors.
 
GoSpursGo said:
This. You need O Chem background to understand what's going on in biochem. Could you just memorize the relevant reactions in metabolism like glycolysis/krebs/etc and get by? Probably, but I like knowing why the reactions work the way they do, and I think it's easier to understand it than to try and cram a bunch of random, meaningless words and equations into my head.
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I took organic chem and still "crammed a bunch of random, meaningless words and equations into my head." in biochem
 
Yes, organic is the foundation of biochem, but the specific reactions you learn are pretty useless as far as medicine goes. You'd be just fine with learning the main reaction types and the concepts driving them and skipping the rest. As for the learning experience/pushing comfort barriers argument, you can learn to think critically without being required to take classes that don't pertain to med school.
 
MilkmanAl said:
Yes, organic is the foundation of biochem, but the specific reactions you learn are pretty useless as far as medicine goes. You'd be just fine with learning the main reaction types and the concepts driving them and skipping the rest. As for the learning experience/pushing comfort barriers argument, you can learn to think critically without being required to take classes that don't pertain to med school.
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The specific reactions you learn in biochem are also pretty useless as far as medicine is concerned.

For a mechanic it's enough to know the basic outlines. If this bolt is loose, I'll hear this noise. If the rotor gets too rusty, the breaks will give way. He doesn't even need to know the first law of thermodynamics. An engineer must know the FUNDAMENTALS. That includes an education including some really hard and seemingly abstract subjects.

Doctors are the engineers of the body, not the mechanics.

You cannot truly understand disease mechanism without knowing cell biology real well, which you can't understand without a strong foundation in biochem, which you can't know well without a solid background in OChem...
 
xanthomondo said:
I think a lot of people undervalue background knowledge. Will you ever need to use O-chem in your medical career? Of course not. Will you ever need to interpret a mass-spec with NMR to find an unknown? Probably never.

Ochem forces you to get out of your comfort zone to learn something completely new. It requires critical thinking skills and helps you sharpen them (which IS helpful in your medical career). Not to mention, without an o-chem background you'd be stupified everytime a lecturer posted a molecule on the powerpoint of a drug.

Sure we don't really need to know o-chem or physics. But then again, what is your definition of a technician? Someone who learns the least possible needed to do their job. As a doctor you don't want to be a technician.
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Agreed. Organic is fundamental and foundational, and doctors must first learn to learn, and Organic gives you a great opportunity to do that.
 
The specific reactions you learn in biochem are also pretty useless as far as medicine is concerned.
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Well, yes, but what I meant by "medicine" was "med school." I realize I should've specified that. You'll notice that I agree you need a background in the reactions that you'll be seeing frequently. However, you don't have to stray into irrelevant topics to know the "FUNDAMENTALS," and you definitely don't need to spend 2 semesters doing so. Should we start requiring PChem for everyone? That's pretty fundamental. How about fluid mechanics? Biophysics? Electronics? There are plenty of things that tangentially pertain to medicine and are "fundamental," but you don't need to know them. I'm usually an "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" kind of guy, but a little optimization of antiquated policy never hurt
 
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MilkmanAl said:
Well, yes, but what I meant by "medicine" was "med school." I realize I should've specified that. You'll notice that I agree you need a background in the reactions that you'll be seeing frequently. However, you don't have to stray into irrelevant topics to know the "FUNDAMENTALS," and you definitely don't need to spend 2 semesters doing so. Should we start requiring PChem for everyone? That's pretty fundamental. How about fluid mechanics? Biophysics? Electronics? There are plenty of things that tangentially pertain to medicine and are "fundamental," but you don't need to know them. I'm usually an "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" kind of guy, but a little optimization of antiquated policy never hurt
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Hear, hear!
 
To be honest, I think orgo probably has more use than physics. If I had to eliminate a pre-req, it would be that one. 🙄
 
MilkmanAl said:
Well, yes, but what I meant by "medicine" was "med school." I realize I should've specified that. You'll notice that I agree you need a background in the reactions that you'll be seeing frequently. However, you don't have to stray into irrelevant topics to know the "FUNDAMENTALS," and you definitely don't need to spend 2 semesters doing so. Should we start requiring PChem for everyone? That's pretty fundamental. How about fluid mechanics? Biophysics? Electronics? There are plenty of things that tangentially pertain to medicine and are "fundamental," but you don't need to know them. I'm usually an "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" kind of guy, but a little optimization of antiquated policy never hurt
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We're essentially agreeing to the main idea, just to different degrees. PChem, fluid mechanics, and quantum physics would, of course, be reductio ad absurdum. In my first post on this thread I wrote that we should get rid of one semester of OChem and replace it with something more relevant, such as molecular genetics. Heck, the Diels Alder reaction is even less relevant to med school than statistical mechanics.

They just want us to be competent scientists, as much as a doctor is a scientist. A doctor should be able to read a recent paper on a new drug and understand the biochemistry of it.
 
ishchayill said:
They just want us to be competent scientists, as much as a doctor is a scientist. A doctor should be able to read a recent paper on a new drug and understand the biochemistry of it.
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I think pre-requisites (especially organic chemistry and physics) are just proof that you can understand and apply abstract concepts. No one said they ever had to be clinically relevant.
 
or they could integrate relevant portions of ochem into biochem and make biochem required instead of ochem.
 
ishchayill said:
The specific reactions you learn in biochem are also pretty useless as far as medicine is concerned.

For a mechanic it's enough to know the basic outlines. If this bolt is loose, I'll hear this noise. If the rotor gets too rusty, the breaks will give way. He doesn't even need to know the first law of thermodynamics. An engineer must know the FUNDAMENTALS. That includes an education including some really hard and seemingly abstract subjects.

Doctors are the engineers of the body, not the mechanics.

You cannot truly understand disease mechanism without knowing cell biology real well, which you can't understand without a strong foundation in biochem, which you can't know well without a solid background in OChem...
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O RLY?

You will never see the molecular mechanisms of biochem again in med school. It isn't talked about and it's not clinically relevant. What you will need to know is the basic outline of the cycle and where deficiencies and regulation of cycles occur. That's it. Learning about the "mother liquor" and Grignard reactions is 100% useless. If you asked me to recite any of the mechanisms of anything I learned in biochem, I could not tell you. I got As in these courses and did well on the MCAT.

That info simply is not needed for boards or patient management.
 
circulus vitios said:
I think pre-requisites (especially organic chemistry and physics) are just proof that you can understand and apply abstract concepts. No one said they ever had to be clinically relevant.
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i agree, though i know this is an unpopular opinion.

i LOVED organic chemistry, and gen chem too for that matter. liked bio. HATED physics. but i'm glad i got such a solid foundation in all of these areas. JMO.
 
PChem, fluid mechanics, and quantum physics would, of course, be reductio ad absurdum.
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I actually disagree on that. I think you'd find many more applications for fluid flow and physical chemistry than organic has to offer. Like Jolie said, mechanisms vanish after organic. You can learn relative reactivity and polarity and such without having to actually draw out reactions. So yes, we agree about needing fundamentals, but 2 semesters of organic chemistry don't figure into that equation. If you wanted to append the first 2-3 weeks of organic onto biochem and require 2 semesters of biochem, that would be fine by me. Organic, though, is a total waste of time for people heading to med school.
 
Global Warming said:
Yeah O Chem is pretty useless and you'll learn nothing from it. Same goes for Physics...hell, just make this a contest on strictly physical appearance. I actually may get pretty far in the race.

Seriously though, O Chem is such an important/awesome class that it would be stupid to ever remove as a pre-req. Also, the fact that it filters a bunch of ppl out nationwide makes it better for people who will enjoy the class.
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👍

Organic chemistry has helped me understand how life works more than any other class, including all my biology classes.
 
randombetch said:
👍

Organic chemistry has helped me understand how life works more than any other class, including all my biology classes.
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totally! it continues to blow my mind. i don't care how nerdy i seem for saying that. i love organic chem.
 
I was scared of ochem before I took it this semester, part I is really not as hard as people say. It's a different animal than genchem, bio, or any other class you might have taken and I agree with the poster who said you have to go outside your comfort zone to understand some concepts. But working hard and doing well is really rewarding.

Now stop being so sterically hindered and take the class.
 
I would hope they wouldn't. Just going off general opinions before I took the class, I don't know if I would have taken it if I wasn't required. And boy o boy would I have missed out. I loved O Chem, I thought it was a fairly easy class, and really interesting. Sure, most of the reactions and mechanisms are almost archaic when looking at current organic chemistry, but I don't know if there is another class that puts you in the mindset that OChem does. If I had room in my schedule, I would for sure take the advanced OChem class we have here, unfortunately I do not.


Physics on the other hand... get rid of it.
 
Diggidy said:
I would hope they wouldn't. Just going off general opinions before I took the class, I don't know if I would have taken it if I wasn't required. And boy o boy would I have missed out. I loved O Chem, I thought it was a fairly easy class, and really interesting. Sure, most of the reactions and mechanisms are almost archaic when looking at current organic chemistry, but I don't know if there is another class that puts you in the mindset that OChem does. If I had room in my schedule, I would for sure take the advanced OChem class we have here, unfortunately I do not.


Physics on the other hand... get rid of it.
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I've actually had a surgeon tell me that she never uses OChem but she does use physics. It kind of boggled my mind.
 
Jolie South said:
O RLY?

You will never see the molecular mechanisms of biochem again in med school. It isn't talked about and it's not clinically relevant. What you will need to know is the basic outline of the cycle and where deficiencies and regulation of cycles occur. That's it. Learning about the "mother liquor" and Grignard reactions is 100% useless. If you asked me to recite any of the mechanisms of anything I learned in biochem, I could not tell you. I got As in these courses and did well on the MCAT.

That info simply is not needed for boards or patient management.
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In that case we might as well get rid of all of the material that isn't directly related to clinical medicine. We all have very good memories, so why not just construct a huge flow-chart and base clinical decisions on that. We chop out at least half the med school preclinical curriculum and leave it up to the PhDs. When they discover something new, we'll just insert it into the right place in the flow-chart and make the necessary adjustments.

Of course, the mother liquor and the precipitate is not on the mind when studying the circulatory system, but having dealt with it in the past gives one a conceptual foundation for understanding clotting.
 
ishchayill said:
In that case we might as well get rid of all of the material that isn't directly related to clinical medicine. We all have very good memories, so why not just construct a huge flow-chart and base clinical decisions on that. We chop out at least half the med school preclinical curriculum and leave it up to the PhDs. When they discover something new, we'll just insert it into the right place in the flow-chart and make the necessary adjustments.
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Now why would I have to memorize a flow chart? Smart phones and PDAs exist for a reason.
 
ishchayill said:
In that case we might as well get rid of all of the material that isn't directly related to clinical medicine. We all have very good memories, so why not just construct a huge flow-chart and base clinical decisions on that. We chop out at least half the med school preclinical curriculum and leave it up to the PhDs. When they discover something new, we'll just insert it into the right place in the flow-chart and make the necessary adjustments.

Of course, the mother liquor and the precipitate is not on the mind when studying the circulatory system, but having dealt with it in the past gives one a conceptual foundation for understanding clotting.
Click to expand...

We'd all like to know everything about everything, but that just isn't feasibly possible. I'm not saying we should remove those courses from the pre-med pre-reqs, but know that what you learn in some of those courses will be gone from your mind after graduation because you won't be recalling it in med school.

I don't understand what pre-reqs have to do with cutting out half of the pre-clinical curriculum. 😕 I actually think that IS important.
 
Physics is necessary for anyone who wants to do RadOnc, Rads, or biomedical (prosthetics) and is an all around useful subject. I think all the prereqs are a good idea and contribute to a solid, well rounded, foundation in the sciences.
 
randombetch said:
👍

Organic chemistry has helped me understand how life works more than any other class, including all my biology classes.
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But which parts of it? I bet if you looked back on it, you'd find that the parts that helped were minuscule and very brief, whereas a class like, say, genetics or molecular biology has useful info throughout.
 
Jolie South said:
We'd all like to know everything about everything, but that just isn't feasibly possible. I'm not saying we should remove those courses from the pre-med pre-reqs, but know that what you learn in some of those courses will be gone from your mind after graduation because you won't be recalling it in med school.

I don't understand what pre-reqs have to do with cutting out half of the pre-clinical curriculum. 😕 I actually think that IS important.
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My point was that some of the pre-clinical curriculum is also the kind of basic science that is not used by the clinician. I'm not in med school yet, but I've been told by some students that there is that kind of discontinuity between the two halves. They say it's possible to do really well in the clinical years with doing just well enough to get passing grades in the preclinical years. I find that hard to believe, but I guess it just depends on the person.
 
Organic requires you to understand a few basic concepts of how things work and extend these concepts to novel and more complicated situations. It seems that this is an essential skill for a physician to have. While we will probably never use the vast majority of information we learned in organic, succeeding in organic chemistry probably indicates to admissions boards that you are able to think in a flexible and abstract manner. I think organic serves a purpose in the physician training process but that's not to say it couldn't be replaced with something that is more relevant.
 
Haven't educational degrees been dumbed down enough? First you've got no-name offshore MD schools taking anyone with a pulse, then you've got DO schools accepting people with 22's on the MCAT and 3.0 GPAs (luckily this isn't the case anymore), and now we've got the DNP degree which doesn't require any challenging basic science classes, period. There is a method to the madness of the pre-med curricula of undergrad schools. Organic chem is a class that tests the ability to memorize large amounts of information as well as problem solving and analytical thinking. I think the general skills it tests are a great preparation for med school and it needs to continue to be used as a weedout class.

Don't fix what isn't broken.
 
I'd venture to say that anyone who can't at least get by organic without tanking his GPA probably won't do so hot in anatomy, physiology, or biochemistry either, should those classes be mandated. If it's weeding out you want, there are tons of other ways to go about it than just keeping organic in the loop simply because it always has been. What everyone seems to be ignoring is that the merits of organic chemistry courses are the same as just about every other biology and chemistry class. All of them require you to memorize a ton of stuff and occasionally apply it.
 
I'll agree that specifics of individual mechanisms isn't useful for medical school, but there is a lot of information taught in organic which is extremely useful. These include things like quickly analyzing the structure of a complicated carbon chain structure, functional groups and their reactivity and developing a sense of how basic structures combine to form larger structures.

Sure, not all of organic is relevant to medical school, but neither is all of any other pre-med prerequisite. I'd say all of organic is more relevant than ecology in general biology or Maxwell's Law in physics or polar coordinates in calculus. Pre-medical prequisites are taken by more than pre-meds. Can you imagine if they had separate classes for only pre-meds? Talk about yuck.
 
MilkmanAl said:
I'd venture to say that anyone who can't at least get by organic without tanking his GPA probably won't do so hot in anatomy, physiology, or biochemistry either, should those classes be mandated. If it's weeding out you want, there are tons of other ways to go about it than just keeping organic in the loop simply because it always has been. What everyone seems to be ignoring is that the merits of organic chemistry courses are the same as just about every other biology and chemistry class. All of them require you to memorize a ton of stuff and occasionally apply it.
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except that organic chemistry is absolutely a novel course for most college students. you get exposed to gen chem gen physics etc in high school.
 
Can you imagine if they had separate classes for only pre-meds? Talk about yuck.
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Yeah, that would be horrible. I'm absolutely not suggesting anything of the sort. A restructuring of the pre-reqs is all I ask.
except that organic chemistry is absolutely a novel course for most college students. you get exposed to gen chem gen physics etc in high school.
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That's probably true, for the most part. I'm not seeing why "novel" means "necessary" or "good," though. If it's novelty they're looking for, why not include more non-science requirements? Is it because organic has that novelty factor in addition to some medicine relevant information and challenging material? There are quite a few courses that meet those criteria. Off the top of my head, I can think of modern physics, fluid mechanics, biochemistry, and genetics. All of those are far more relevant to med school than either of my organic chem classes were.

It would be stupid to do away with organic chemistry entirely, but like I suggested earlier, stuffing the useful aspects of it into a biochem course wouldn't be all that hard.
 
MilkmanAl said:
Yeah, that would be horrible. I'm absolutely not suggesting anything of the sort. A restructuring of the pre-reqs is all I ask.
That's probably true, for the most part. I'm not seeing why "novel" means "necessary" or "good," though. If it's novelty they're looking for, why not include more non-science requirements? Is it because organic has that novelty factor in addition to some medicine relevant information and challenging material? There are quite a few courses that meet those criteria. Off the top of my head, I can think of modern physics, fluid mechanics, biochemistry, and genetics. All of those are far more relevant to med school than either of my organic chem classes were.

It would be stupid to do away with organic chemistry entirely, but like I suggested earlier, stuffing the useful aspects of it into a biochem course wouldn't be all that hard.
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it's a science class that puts everyone on a relatively level field without being too far advanced. modern physics, fluid mechanics and genetics are all covered in AP courses in an intro manner i believe..
 
A person can easily pass G-chem without understanding any chemistry at all. If you are good with unit line equations and algebra you can pass it without knowing much chemistry at all. O-chem is on another playing field. No math at all. You actually have to understand chemistry concepts inside out to succeed in it.
 
J1515 said:
Haven't educational degrees been dumbed down enough? First you've got no-name offshore MD schools taking anyone with a pulse, then you've got DO schools accepting people with 22's on the MCAT and 3.0 GPAs (luckily this isn't the case anymore), and now we've got the DNP degree which doesn't require any challenging basic science classes, period. There is a method to the madness of the pre-med curricula of undergrad schools. Organic chem is a class that tests the ability to memorize large amounts of information as well as problem solving and analytical thinking. I think the general skills it tests are a great preparation for med school and it needs to continue to be used as a weedout class.

Don't fix what isn't broken.
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As long as they take the same licensing exams as every other medical student, then why does it matter?

I mean if you want to play that game then you should cut out "bull****" undergrad majors. Anyone can major in nutrition at a crappy state school, suck ass at the medical school prerequisites, and still graduate with a 3.8. How is that fair to pre-meds majorig in chemistry, math, physics, engineering, etc?
 
circulus vitios said:
As long as they take the same licensing exams as every other medical student, then why does it matter?

I mean if you want to play that game then you should cut out "bull****" undergrad majors. Anyone can major in nutrition at a crappy state school, suck ass at the medical school prerequisites, and still graduate with a 3.8. How is that fair to pre-meds majorig in chemistry, math, physics, engineering, etc?
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Yeah, I've always thought the engineers get the shaft. A 3.3 in engineering is very respectible, but is below average for med school admissions...
 
instead of getting rid of o-chem, every college student should get one class eraser so that when you get sh.tty core teacher, you can erase your grade and it won't count and everyone is happy.
 
praspudi said:
instead of getting rid of o-chem, every college student should get one class eraser so that when you get sh.tty core teacher, you can erase your grade and it won't count and everyone is happy.
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Or just allow retakes like DO schools.
 
I definitely agree that a full year of orgo is overkill, and that the second semester should be optional. I'm graduating with a degree in pharmacology, and I think the first semester is crucial for biochem, physiology, and pharmacology. The second semester is more appropriate to those who plan to be organic chemists, or at least chemistry majors.

I always did well in math-based classes, and memorization-based biology classes. Orgo I taught me problem-solving in a way that I think is relevant to clinicians; it's a different mindset that requires the student to switch gears and approach problems with a unique way. Even if it wasn't one of the foundations of biochem, it's valuable for that reason alone. I struggled through orgo I, but I aced orgo II because I finally "got it." But I spent that semester wondering why we really needed to learn it at all. If anything, the first semester says more about someone's ability to adapt to and excel in a subject that is difficult and unfamiliar.

Med schools should drop the orgo II requirement and instead require a semester of biochem. Genetics is so relevant now that I regret not taking it...that would also be a reasonable requirement, perhaps in lieu of physics II. E&M is useful, but more relevant to radiologists and biomedical engineers.

That's just my opinion. My fiancé is a PA student. If you look at PA pre-reqs, they're mire clearly delineated in general, and make more sense. Med students who completed my pharmacology program said biochem, pharm, and physio were much easier, less detailed, and clinically relevant than my required courses. They wish they had taken genetics and stats, and they're grateful that pharm, physio and biochem were a breeze for them, after they stuggled through our program requirements. Med schools should look for students who have proven they've mastered the foundation of medical training, instead of those who are overly proficient in some things, and insufficiently prepared for others. The pre-reqs are imbalanced. The solution is not to tack on MORE ore-reqs, but to re-evaluate what's really relevant.
 
I prefer they get rid of physics. Why should I care about heat engines? *headdesk*.

As for Orgo, I liked it! I know a lot of people hate it but it's at least somewhat useful in understanding any kind of bio science...not to mention the ingredients in your food! Also, how awesome is it to look at a name and know it's structure, at least somewhat? Orgo rocks! =) WHen I am bored in the shower I look at organic names in my shampoo and try to draw their structures on the wall =).
What I do think they should do is tell people how to study for that class. Most people seem to be getting away with pulling an all-nigher or two in bio classes. Unless you have a photographic memory, it isn't going to work for Orgo. I was lucky enough to get a good advice from a girl who was tutoring chemistry at my school's tutoring center. Before I went to her I got a 60% and a 49% on my two tests. It was so shocking I still remember! Then I only went to the tutoring center. She told me what she did to study. I went back home, did the exact same thing, took the exam the next day, and got 30 points above average. I got an A first semester and B+ second. I am still proud just cause of that A. And a B+ is pretty damn impressive in my book too especially since I took biochem the same semester =).
 
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the majority of pre-reqs are useless, except like Bio 101 and *maybe* chem 101.

you just need a very very basic understanding of terms and major concept to suceed in medical school ebcause it doesn't go into specifics. Advanced bio/chem/phys classes are not even touched upon in medical school.

For example, genetics, is a FULL semester in college. In biochem, our genetics lecture was 2, 1 hour lectures.
 
Frazier said:
Nice work on the turn around.

But don't leave us hanging -- what was the study advice?
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First of all I studied my butt off the first two months of the class before we got to reactions. I did so bad at first because I did not know how to apply that knowledge and did not see the big picture.

Anyway, what the girl suggested I would do is group all the reactions on a piece of paper. Like, your aldol condensations in one group and your cleisens in another (sorry if I messed the names up. Orgo ended in May! =D). I put minimal notes there! No more than names of reactions or some kind of clue to how it proceeds. You look for patterns and try to understand why this oxygen atom reacts like this rather than like that. If I felt like understanding was a lost cause, I'd isolate that reaction on another piece of paper and stare at it all the time, like for 5 min, twice a day...

I would then use this piece of paper (with all the grouped reaction) to do example problems in the back of the chapters. That made me remember reactions really well and really fast. By the middle of the second semester I got so good at it that I didn't even do practice problems. I did not spend much time on Orgo at all by that time. All my efforts went into Biochem and Genetics 😀

Also get this book: Organic Chemistry as a Second Language
If you need any more advice feel free to ask here/PM
 
riverjib said:
Med schools should drop the orgo II requirement and instead require a semester of biochem. Genetics is so relevant now that I regret not taking it...that would also be a reasonable requirement, perhaps in lieu of physics II.
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👍
 
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