Gross Anatomy Sucks!!!!

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Psycho Doctor

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Well at least the exam did....now what am I going to do??? :confused: :scared: :thumbdown:

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Just know that it sucks for most people...and it ends eventually. Best of luck.
 
2112_rush said:
Just know that it sucks for most people...and it ends eventually. Best of luck.

yes, the key is how badly it sucked for everyone else. it seems that almost all exams suck, but as long as they sucked at least equally as much for the majority of the other people- then you're all right.
 
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2112_rush said:
Just know that it sucks for most people...and it ends eventually. Best of luck.



fun8stuff said:
yes, the key is how badly it sucked for everyone else. it seems that almost all exams suck, but as long as they sucked at least equally as much for the majority of the other people- then you're all right.

:laugh: :laugh: it's actually hard to ascertain everyone else's relative suck scale.
 
Psycho Doctor said:
:laugh: :laugh: it's actually hard to ascertain everyone else's relative suck scale.

It SUCKS

And I actually think anatomy is interesting, but the amount of information was so overwhelming it took all the enjoyment out of it (I had never had an anatomy course before)
 
I agree! Anatomy does suck...and not because it is hard to learn in and of itself. But the sheer volume and time contraints take all the joy out of it. I'm still digging my way through the corocobrachialis and adductor magnus and that was weeks ago! :oops:
 
Psycho Doctor said:
Well at least the exam did....now what am I going to do??? :confused: :scared: :thumbdown:


you could............... :idea:



drop out.
 
grr I'm starting Gross anatomy in 2 weeks..don't get me scared!
I'm enjoying epithelia right now:)
 
Psycho Doctor said:
Well at least the exam did....now what am I going to do??? :confused: :scared: :thumbdown:

Yes it does...I finished gross anatomy 3 weeks ago and I am soooooo glad it is over. Try doing gross anatomy in 6 weeks! It was intense. The best thing to do after an antomy exam is Party!
 
DeterminedMD said:
Yes it does...I finished gross anatomy 3 weeks ago and I am soooooo glad it is over. Try doing gross anatomy in 6 weeks! It was intense. The best thing to do after an antomy exam is Party!

You did anatomy in 6 weeks. Did you actually retain anything, or is everything pretty much a blur????? Six weeks, is just insane, but I am sure you can tell me where the liver and spleen are located. :laugh:
 
tupac_don said:
You did anatomy in 6 weeks. Did you actually retain anything, or is everything pretty much a blur????? Six weeks, is just insane, but I am sure you can tell me where the liver and spleen are located. :laugh:

6 weeks?! what did u do, spend 8 hours a day in teh lab?
 
2112_rush said:
It SUCKS

And I actually think anatomy is interesting, but the amount of information was so overwhelming it took all the enjoyment out of it (I had never had an anatomy course before)
well put. i would ordinarily say that i "like anatomy" but overwhelming is a good word. for instance, our next exam will have topics as diverse as the lymph drainage of the scrotum, embryology of the hand, and innervation of the back. yikes.
 
DeterminedMD said:
Yes it does...I finished gross anatomy 3 weeks ago and I am soooooo glad it is over. Try doing gross anatomy in 6 weeks! It was intense. The best thing to do after an antomy exam is Party!
yea normally i would agree, but i have more exams this week :(
 
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lymphatic drainage is my waterloo in anatomy! i could memorize innervations, ligaments, anything but not lymphs system... i just can't grasp the concept of the whole system!!!!
 
DeterminedMD said:
Yes it does...I finished gross anatomy 3 weeks ago and I am soooooo glad it is over. Try doing gross anatomy in 6 weeks! It was intense. The best thing to do after an antomy exam is Party!

Finally. . .a school that's even worse than mine in terms of how fast they blast through anatomy! I thought 10 weeks was lousy. You have my infinite sympathy.
 
DeterminedMD said:
Yes it does...I finished gross anatomy 3 weeks ago and I am soooooo glad it is over. Try doing gross anatomy in 6 weeks! It was intense. The best thing to do after an antomy exam is Party!

We'll be done w/ ours after our last exam this saturday - I can't wait. Doing it in 10 weeks was bad enough, I can't even imagine doing it in 6. Crazy.
 
We did it in 6 weeks too. I had my last anatomy lab today and we have our final on friday. We spent 2-3 times/week for roughly 3 hours each time dissecting. It was intense but I'm so happy its over!...I hated all the digging around and cutting and would have much preferred to just look at prosections. I have zero interest in surgery, in case you couldn't tell.....
 
Would somone mind informing a naive pre med how an anatomy exam is taken? Is it written (MC)?
 
Chris127 said:
Would somone mind informing a naive pre med how an anatomy exam is taken? Is it written (MC)?

Not sure if there are exceptions, but most schools conduct two exams for every block of material in anatomy. You will take a written exam, which covers clinical correlations to the material you've covered, as well as detailed questions about innervations and vasculature. You'll also take a lab practical exam, where you are given structures from the dissections your class has done and asked to identify them.
 
It is the most bizarre form of sadistic torture. A common interview question for aspiring anatomy professors is, "Do you eat the souls of medical students for breakfast?"

Ok....maybe not that bad..my school had a written and practical exam that counted equally to the overall test grade.
 
Anatomy in 6 weeks in not only inhumane, it's completely counterproductive to learning. Why, why do they structure the curriculum like that?? The one thing I love about my school is that anatomy is relatively low pressure here. For one, unlike most schools, we don't have it in a block, but rather we do one disection a week and it goes along with our other classes for pretty much the rest of the year. Yeah we gotta suffer through a whole year of anatomy but at least we get a whole week to absorb each dissection. And we also have only the practical exam (though they do throw 4-5 anat. questions into our other written exams but you could say those don't count). And because anatomy grade is a relatively small part of our system grade we could technically fail it every time and still get a passing grade for the system. It is still a challenging course but they try to make it as low pressure as possible which prevents ppl from despising it. It makes sense to me. Six weeks is crazy, but if you absolutely hate anatomy at least you get it over with fast.
 
yellowcat322 said:
Anatomy in 6 weeks in not only inhumane, it's completely counterproductive to learning. Why, why do they structure the curriculum like that?? The one thing I love about my school is that anatomy is relatively low pressure here. For one, unlike most schools, we don't have it in a block, but rather we do one disection a week and it goes along with our other classes for pretty much the rest of the year. Yeah we gotta suffer through a whole year of anatomy but at least we get a whole week to absorb each dissection. And we also have only the practical exam (though they do throw 4-5 anat. questions into our other written exams but you could say those don't count). And because anatomy grade is a relatively small part of our system grade we could technically fail it every time and still get a passing grade for the system. It is still a challenging course but they try to make it as low pressure as possible which prevents ppl from despising it. It makes sense to me. Six weeks is crazy, but if you absolutely hate anatomy at least you get it over with fast.
Do you think not having a written exam in Anatomy is productive? That stuff is pretty high yield on the boards and it has been very helpful to have been exposed and tested on it. Our school did Gross Anatomy in 7 weeks and Head and Neck in 3 weeks. It was tough but it's very worth having those classes and anatomy lab out of the way now.
 
Well I love anatomy, it is very exciting and engaging, now biochem on the other hand :thumbdown:
 
well we actually did have to learn all the clinical correlations as well; a lot of it was mixed into the practical and the rest was covered by those several written questions -- yes it's only a few quesitons but keep in mind that our course is spread throughout the whole year so overall we probably get about 30-40 written questions on clinical correlations. I feel like I know anatomy (at least the parts we've dissected to far) as well as my friends who had to cram it all in in several weeks. My school has a lot of stupidity in its curriculum but this at least I see as a smart move on their part.
 
yellowcat322 said:
Anatomy in 6 weeks in not only inhumane, it's completely counterproductive to learning. Why, why do they structure the curriculum like that?? The one thing I love about my school is that anatomy is relatively low pressure here.

I have to say that it doesn't feel "inhumane" because its not as if we are learning everything that would be learned in a year long course in those 6 weeks. It is abridged. We only have one anatomy test at the end (and an optional midterm self-assessment that doesn't count) and they only throw a few curveball structues on there. Most are obvious things. I don't want to waste a year memorizing random minutiae that i'll end up forgetting unless i'm using it in my speciality and much prefer this more "big picture" abdriged approach. I'm sure either approach has advantages/disadvantages though.
 
Wait until you get to path (histopath)...

noncestvrai
 
OnMyWayThere said:
Do you think not having a written exam in Anatomy is productive? That stuff is pretty high yield on the boards and it has been very helpful to have been exposed and tested on it.

Only neuroanatomy is high-yield on the boards.
 
noncestvrai said:
Wait until you get to path (histopath)...

noncestvrai

just reminding me of what i'm supposed to be studying on my own is making me cry :( . Oh, for the days of anatomy. Luckily, I've got Goljan's audio lectures coming soon :)
 
Psycho Doctor said:
Well at least the exam did....now what am I going to do??? :confused: :scared: :thumbdown:

I hear ya man, gross was by far the crappiest class for me first year. Looking back though, I would have given anything to be back in class with my own schedule instead of showing up on the wards at 5 am...I hated 3rd year. Fourth year is great though :D

hoov
 
noncestvrai said:
Wait until you get to path (histopath)...

noncestvrai

I never liked comments like this. In fact, I hate them. How is this helpful to the student who's worrying about anatomy? Not only is it NOT helpful, but it will probably add unnecessary stress to an already stressed out 1st year. How do you know that this student will not find path (or histopath) enjoyable and perhaps easier than anatomy. Honestly, path is really not that hard. If you understand it, certain things are actually intuitive.

When I was pre-med, some med students used to tell me "wait until you get into med school." When I was a 1st year, a 2nd year told me "wait until you get into 2nd year." Now that I'm a 2nd (and still doing well), a 3rd year recently told me "wait until you get into 3rd year." When are these useless and counter-productive statements going to stop! We need to stop assuming that b/c we struggled with a class/rotation, that everyone else will too!!

To the OP, anatomy is tough. Some love it, others hate it (like me). You will probably study harder for some classes and not so much for others in the next 1-2 years. Nevertheless, keep your head up and keep studying. You were selected to be in med school for a reason...b/c you're smart and more importantly, you're determined! Don't forget that. G'luck.
 
DOCTORSAIB said:
I never liked comments like this. In fact, I hate them. How is this helpful to the student who's worrying about anatomy? Not only is it NOT helpful, but it will probably add unnecessary stress to an already stressed out 1st year. How do you know that this student will not find path (or histopath) enjoyable and perhaps easier than anatomy. Honestly, path is really not that hard. If you understand it, certain things are actually intuitive.

When I was pre-med, some med students used to tell me "wait until you get into med school." When I was a 1st year, a 2nd year told me "wait until you get into 2nd year." Now that I'm a 2nd (and still doing well), a 3rd year recently told me "wait until you get into 3rd year." When are these useless and counter-productive statements going to stop! We need to stop assuming that b/c we struggled with a class/rotation, that everyone else will too!!

To the OP, anatomy is tough. Some love it, others hate it (like me). You will probably study harder for some classes and not so much for others in the next 1-2 years. Nevertheless, keep your head up and keep studying. You were selected to be in med school for a reason...b/c you're smart and more importantly, you're determined! Don't forget that. G'luck.

First relax, and you seem to confirm my implied comment that med students always complain. This is a discussion forum, and everybody is entitled to his or her own opinion. Mine is that I like, enjoy, do better in anatomy than in pathology. You might have a different opinion but that's fine. Alternatively, what you could get out of my brief message is that there is always something else that will be a challenge, life is just like that believe it or not. I can't deny your wishes for the OP, they are quite proper in this instance.

BTW anatomy can be intuitive too, if you understand the structure-function relations, as much as in pathology. To me both are "pattern recognition", but I prefer anatomy. I prefer women too, that's a pattern I will never get tired of... :thumbup: Don't tell me your preference, that will be a completely useless addtion to my already useless post.

In addtion, if I do a quick survey in my class, I think people will agree with me in general that pathology is not so hot at first. That may also be misinformation since not a lot of people envision the typical doctor as a pathologist...but I digress again.

I need to get back to studying for my path exam monday :)

noncestvrai
 
sacrament said:
Only neuroanatomy is high-yield on the boards.

Hi there,
Not exactly true. Path, Pharm, Physio followed by Immuno, Micro, Biochem followed by Psyc, and Anatomy (Histo, Neuro, Gross). You can argue that you need to have some grasp of Neuro for Pharm but neuroanatomy is fairly low yield compared to the three Ps.

njbmd :)
 
noncestvrai said:
First relax, and you seem to confirm my implied comment that med students always complain. This is a discussion forum, and everybody is entitled to his or her own opinion. Mine is that I like, enjoy, do better in anatomy than in pathology. You might have a different opinion but that's fine. Alternatively, what you could get out of my brief message is that there is always something else that will be a challenge, life is just like that believe it or not. I can't deny your wishes for the OP, they are quite proper in this instance.

BTW anatomy can be intuitive too, if you understand the structure-function relations, as much as in pathology. To me both are "pattern recognition", but I prefer anatomy. I prefer women too, that's a pattern I will never get tired of... :thumbup: Don't tell me your preference, that will be a completely useless addtion to my already useless post.

In addtion, if I do a quick survey in my class, I think people will agree with me in general that pathology is not so hot at first. That may also be misinformation since not a lot of people envision the typical doctor as a pathologist...but I digress again.

I need to get back to studying for my path exam monday :)

noncestvrai

Let's get something clear here. I'm not complaining. I'm TELLING you to stop making useless comments like "wait until ____(fill in the blank with a class, year, rotation, residency, etc)" types of comments. I'm pretty sure somewhere in your education some upperclassmen/women told you that statement. I'm pretty damn sure of that. If you're finding path difficult, then say "I think path is difficult." Now that is a statement about your opinion, which you are definetly entitled to have, especially on SDN.

Anyways, let's try to be more positive and help underclassmen/women. I think we both have some path studying to do. ;)
 
DOCTORSAIB said:
Let's get something clear here. I'm not complaining. I'm TELLING you to stop making useless comments like "wait until ____(fill in the blank with a class, year, rotation, residency, etc)" types of comments. I'm pretty sure somewhere in your education some upperclassmen/women told you that statement. I'm pretty damn sure of that. If you're finding path difficult, then say "I think path is difficult." Now that is a statement about your opinion, which you are definetly entitled to have, especially on SDN.

Anyways, let's try to be more positive and help underclassmen/women. I think we both have some path studying to do. ;)


yeah i remember my teachers used to say.. they are not gonna tolerate that in 6th grade... when you get to high school. I hope you are not gonna do that.. Wait until college.. etc etc etc..

I agree anatomy sucks.. was my worst class.. I dont think anything was as bad for me as anatomy.. I mean it all sucked but anatomy sucked in a big big way..
 
njbmd said:
Hi there,
Not exactly true. Path, Pharm, Physio followed by Immuno, Micro, Biochem followed by Psyc, and Anatomy (Histo, Neuro, Gross). You can argue that you need to have some grasp of Neuro for Pharm but neuroanatomy is fairly low yield compared to the three Ps.

njbmd :)

neuroanatomy seems pretty high-yield within the overall anatomy u're tested on (which is low-yield compared w/ other subjects). So I guess it's high-yield in a low-yield way? lol.
 
CarleneM said:
I have to say that it doesn't feel "inhumane" because its not as if we are learning everything that would be learned in a year long course in those 6 weeks. It is abridged. We only have one anatomy test at the end (and an optional midterm self-assessment that doesn't count) and they only throw a few curveball structues on there. Most are obvious things. I don't want to waste a year memorizing random minutiae that i'll end up forgetting unless i'm using it in my speciality and much prefer this more "big picture" abdriged approach. I'm sure either approach has advantages/disadvantages though.

I've never heard of an abridged anatomy course. I know a couple of my friends in other schools who are doing anatomy in one block are learning pretty much all the terms I'm learning, and probably even more in a way because they have a whole written part on clinical correlations. Perhaps it's different in your school. I find anatomy manageable now but I woud probably be way too overwhelmed if we had to learn all of this material as a block -- even with no other classes. Though I guess I'd adjust like everyone else. It's not like all of the other classes aren't one big blur anyway,
 
yellowcat322 said:
I've never heard of an abridged anatomy course. I know a couple of my friends in other schools who are doing anatomy in one block are learning pretty much all the terms I'm learning, and probably even more in a way because they have a whole written part on clinical correlations. Perhaps it's different in your school. I find anatomy manageable now but I woud probably be way too overwhelmed if we had to learn all of this material as a block -- even with no other classes. Though I guess I'd adjust like everyone else. It's not like all of the other classes aren't one big blur anyway,

i need to amend my original statement. we have 7 weeks, not 6 of anatomy. But yes, it is abridged. We don't do the back, the posterior of the forearm, the soles of the feet, for example. Also, I've looked at tests and review sites from other schools and we really haven't learned many of the terms on their exams. On any given Netter plate, there are quite a few labels we simply don't have to know. I'm thankful for this!
 
njbmd said:
Hi there,
Not exactly true. Path, Pharm, Physio followed by Immuno, Micro, Biochem followed by Psyc, and Anatomy (Histo, Neuro, Gross). You can argue that you need to have some grasp of Neuro for Pharm but neuroanatomy is fairly low yield compared to the three Ps.

njbmd :)

In the context of the post I quoted, what I was saying is that of anatomy topics, only neuroanatomy is high yield. In my case it was, in fact, the only anatomy I saw on the exam, and comprised a total of maybe 8 questions. Which, compared to some of the crap that you'll feel obligated to spend a good long time memorizing (inherited enzyme deficiencies, anybody?) is sort of high-yield.
 
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