How is Biochem taught at your school?

[The Knife & Gun Club]

I think there was a thread about this a while back for anatomy, and I wanted to get peoples opinions for biochem. Basically, I'm trying to figure out if the way my school does biochem is normal (and im just being a whiney M1) or if were actually doing an unreasonable amount of minutia.


We have 3 hours of lecture a day, and mostly it is just lists of definitions and names of molecules. Almost nothing I learned in either undergrad biochem has been discussed in our class. This is my 3rd time taking biochem (took it twice at different undergrads), and Im amazed we're covering so little theory. Basically, we covered all of pH in about 30 minutes and the professor told us not to worry about it since it's "Not that relevant anyway" which seems odd to me. They want us to memorize lots of small details, like the molecular weights of the various ribosome subunits in prokaryotes vs eukaryotes or the names of the various types of H2A histones.


TLDR, how do they teach it at your school? What degree of detail is expected? Am I just being a whiney M1?

Thanks!

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[Donald Juan]

I believe what you are describing is the norm. My undergrad biochem was more principal based, and learning how to interpret formulas and concepts/diagrams (I can't remember any of the specifics at this point...). Med school was memorize this enzyme, memorize these components, memorize this, that, etc, etc.

This is a common theme in med school, especially the first year. It's less understanding things, more memorizing. I've always thought that a semester of ochem or physics was more difficult to conceptually understand than anything in med school, it's just that med school throws 20X the info at you. Get through the grind. Slowly, over time you will have to start using your brain again.

 

[FindMeOnTheLinks]

I think there was a thread about this a while back for anatomy, and I wanted to get peoples opinions for biochem. Basically, I'm trying to figure out if the way my school does biochem is normal (and im just being a whiney M1) or if were actually doing an unreasonable amount of minutia.


We have 3 hours of lecture a day, and mostly it is just lists of definitions and names of molecules. Almost nothing I learned in either undergrad biochem has been discussed in our class. This is my 3rd time taking biochem (took it twice at different undergrads), and Im amazed we're covering so little theory. Basically, we covered all of pH in about 30 minutes and the professor told us not to worry about it since it's "Not that relevant anyway" which seems odd to me. They want us to memorize lots of small details, like the molecular weights of the various ribosome subunits in prokaryotes vs eukaryotes or the names of the various types of H2A histones.


TLDR, how do they teach it at your school? What degree of detail is expected? Am I just being a whiney M1?

Thanks!

3 hrs of lecture a day sounds...average, maybe even a light schedule.

The reason your professor told you pH is low yield, is because you don't need to understand it in huge detail as a med student. It will come back up in your pharmacology, respiratory and renal lectures but not too many other places, and it's pretty simple...

Prokaryotic vs eukaryotic ribosome subunits are important to know...many antibiotics target the prokaryotic ribosomal subunits and you need to know this.

So just these few examples show that what you are learning IS relevant.

A lot of the stuff seems really esoteric and unimportant now, but it will come back up and you will realize why they mentioned it earlier. This is a theme that happens throughout 1st year. Just try to learn as much as you can even if is seems frustrating. You will get to pathways and more interesting stuff soon enough.


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[W19]

Memorize enzymes and drawing pathways again and again and again... It was a 14-week course at my school while we had histology and professionalism. We covered Mendelian genetics in the last week of the class.

If you are worried about minutiae as a M1, you have not seen anything yet.... Some of the minutiae i.e ribosomes subunits and histones H2A that you are talking about are tested on step 1.


Welcome to med school basic science!

 

[NotaCop]

Ours is a 15ish week semester with an hour of biochem every morning. We also have histo anatomy ethics doctoring/clinical classes during this time to give you an idea of the breakdown. Mainly the content covers pathways in great detail, with an emphasis on clinical correlations, regulation, interrelationships between various forms of metabolism, etc. Order of material is Proteins Carbs Lipids Nitrogenous stuff Big Picture of all the pathways put together and to end we have Genetics. We cover tons of material very quickly and are expected to know it in great depth for exams when it is only talked above briefly in class. Overall, it feels like med school. Your class sounds slightly more esoteric, and I would be frustrated too, but it will benefit you if not in knowledge for step 1 than in knowledge and experience for how to study crap like this for years to come

 

[Jabbed]

It is in the grand scheme, unimportant. The only clinically applicable stuff is really energy metabolism and pathway concepts. pH in straight med school biochem is of middling importance. It's much more important in physio and pharm.

Ribosomes:
PrOkaryotes: odd numbers- 30, 50, 70
Eukaryotes: even numbers- 40, 60, 80

Just wait until you get to HLA associations.

 

[drdking]

Our biochem block was about a month of a larger cellular and molecular basics of life class.

Roughly 12 hours of optional lectures a week with a quiz on Friday. Also we have a case based learning class once a week which is also something relevant to what we're currently learning and helps tie everything together.

Most of it was big picture concepts. There is no avoiding memorizing the regulated enzymes and what controls them, but most was more over arching effects. For example a test question would ask about a patient doing thing X with condition Y and what the down stream effects would be.

We also at the same time have two other patient centered medicine/doctoring classes that run the entire year. But they only meet for three hours each every week.

 

[Lannister]

Our first semester consists of three blocks of six weeks each: an intro block with ethics and biostats and stuff, Fundamentals of Molecular Medicine, and Fundamentals of Cellular Medicine. Biochem falls under the Molecular Medicine block, which we're doing right now. I'm not sure what exactly is considered biochem, but we have 13-15 hours of optional lecture a week, which consists of a lot of metabolism and biochem pathways mixed in with some genetics and pharmacology, and a few other random things. It's definitely challenging but since it's mixed in with other stuff it doesn't feel too overwhelming.

I can't compare this course to biochem in undergrad since I never really took a real biochem class, but we definitely don't focus on details like it sounds like you do. We have to know all the intermediates and enzymes and stuff, but we don't need to know specific weights or pH's or anything. Most test questions are along the lines of, "Your patient shows these symptoms, what enzyme is messed up?".

 

[The Knife & Gun Club]

Appreciate all the responses. Sounds like I'm just feeling the usual annoyance with an M1 class where I don't yet see the relevance of the subject matter, as it won't be apparent til later.

I am surprised how long some peoples biochem classes are though! Ours is only ~2 weeks

(It's a 4 week block, 2 weeks biochem and 2 weeks genetic diseases)

 

[Oh_Gee]

It is in the grand scheme, unimportant. The only clinically applicable stuff is really energy metabolism and pathway concepts. pH in straight med school biochem is of middling importance. It's much more important in physio and pharm.

Ribosomes:
PrOkaryotes: odd numbers- 30, 50, 70
Eukaryotes: even numbers- 40, 60, 80

Just wait until you get to HLA associations.

what about 5S?

 

[takeurmeds02]

We're not done with biochem until february >_>

 

[Goro]

Badly.

🙁

I think there was a thread about this a while back for anatomy, and I wanted to get peoples opinions for biochem. Basically, I'm trying to figure out if the way my school does biochem is normal (and im just being a whiney M1) or if were actually doing an unreasonable amount of minutia.


We have 3 hours of lecture a day, and mostly it is just lists of definitions and names of molecules. Almost nothing I learned in either undergrad biochem has been discussed in our class. This is my 3rd time taking biochem (took it twice at different undergrads), and Im amazed we're covering so little theory. Basically, we covered all of pH in about 30 minutes and the professor told us not to worry about it since it's "Not that relevant anyway" which seems odd to me. They want us to memorize lots of small details, like the molecular weights of the various ribosome subunits in prokaryotes vs eukaryotes or the names of the various types of H2A histones.


TLDR, how do they teach it at your school? What degree of detail is expected? Am I just being a whiney M1?

Thanks!