How is everybody feeling?

[ItsGavinC]

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I know that only a couple schools have started, and that more are starting in the next 1-2 weeks.

If you've started, how are you doing? Is anybody feeling completely overwhelmed by the amount of material that is being presented?

We aren't even deep into our science lectures yet, but I'm beginning to feel like I'm slowly drowning. To be honest though, I'm familiar with this feeling, and I know it stays until I become accustomed to the rigors of the curriculum and schedule.

After my body/mind get acclimated I'll feel better, but right now I can't tell up from down! The reading load alone is enough to make my head spin, and I'm an English major!!

 

[Hot-n-Aml]

Hey,

I haven't started yet, but I've heard enough stories (such as yours) to be a bit nervous.

And you are totally right when you say that it's a major adjustment. I just hope I can get used to it all before exams starting popping up.

But I believe that it will be OK, since so many people have gone through it. So stay strong and keep your head above water 😉

Hot-n-Aml

_________________________________________________
UPitt, SDM, Class of 2007

 

[ItsGavinC]

Hot-n-Aml,

One of the courses I'm most worried about is our Genetics course, and a professor from your dental school is teaching it to us!

 

[sjdent]

This may sound dramatic, but I cried a lot first quarter from sheer exhaustion and stress...I called home and told my parents that I was failing at least once a week. Thankfully, I found a group of wonderful friends who really did share the same fears as I did.

Guess what.........I'm now a sophomore!! And while sometimes I didn't get the best grades, I've learned a valuable lesson and I'll pass it on to you guys.

If you're competent enough to get in, you'll make it out. It's all in the amount of work you put into it. EVERYONE is in the same boat. Sounds cliche, but SO TRUE!! Take it from me, and I'm a stress case if there ever was one.

You guys are going to do great. Just don't let yourself get too far behind, and hit the ground running. For me, those two are key to success.

 

[aphistis]

Gavin, I know how you feel 😀

The worst part of our curriculum so far has been the anatomy lab. It's the first didactic course they threw us into, and anatomy was definitely my weakest undergrad subject (due to switching into pre-dent my junior year, I had to take some pretty weak subtitutes in places), and it's where I'm least prepared.

We have a lab quiz in a couple hours on the anterior cervical triangle (no problem) and the base of neck & superior thoracic inlet (uh-oh), and on Monday's exam we're accountable for anything between mandible line and T1.

Most of it is no problem, but the nervous aspect is killing me. There's so much recombination and switcharooing going on in the nervous system that keeping track of everything is proving...difficult 🙄

Keep up the fight! We'll be out before we know it (or so I'm repeatedly told).

 

[acrunner]

you all are making me nervous. i've never had anatomy.

 

[UBTom]

Don't be nervous. The majority of freshman dental students never had anatomy before either-- including me.

And I like to think I did OK.. Or I wouldn't be where I am now. 😀

 

[ItsGavinC]

Bill, good luck on your Monday exam. We are also having an exam on Monday, but it will be our first. The subject matter isn't too serious, and most of all we are having it to get used to the technology we are using.

Good luck and don't forget to update us!

BTW, we are having a course in two weeks called "Intro to Health Disciplines". The texts for that course are all BRS books and they are:

- Cell Bio and Histology
- Embryology
- Gross Anatomy
- Microbio and Immunology
- Neuroanatomy
- Pathology
- Phramacology
- Physiology

Like I said, they are all BRS series, but that is still eight texts for that one week course! Gulp!

 

[Yah-E]

G:

Those BRS series will be a great resource for board studies! Hang on tight to them!

A

 

[shootin4par]

Well guys,

Just like you all are gearing up for school, Im bracing myself to hit the brick wall!! I too never had anatomy, except for those few little critters we disected back in bio1 lab...........

Freaking out yet? I think the reality of classes is hitting me, so yes just a bit😱 😱

 

[ItsGavinC]

Shootin, just wait! The difficulty of each curriculum varies from school to school, but I think there are certain adjustments that need to be made no matter which program you are attending.

I got 6 hours of studying in yesterday for Medical Genetics and so I'm feeling like I'm a little more in control of my destiny than I was several days ago. Such is dental school.

 

[aphistis]

Update!

Good news: The anatomy exam is no longer tomorrow. It's been pushed back to Wednesday. Score! 😀

Bad news: We're also taking a lab practical and a triple-jump exam (basically an individualized PBL-format exam). Three major evaluations in one day. D'oh! 😱

Things are starting to come together a little, though. I'm still fairly butchering my side of the cadaver in lab, but another woman in our group was born with a scalpel in hand, so her side looks as good as the prosection. (phew!)

More to come on Wednesday!

 

[Beagle]

Aphistis,
How do you like the PBL at IU?
Did you or the other students have a hard time adjusting to the cirriculum?

Beagle

 

[ItsGavinC]

Beagle,

I know the question wasn't directed at me, but I've enjoyed our "PBL case" portion of our curriculum so much thus far that I had to respond!

I think this part of the curriculum will really set us apart from other graduates and truly improve our decision-making abilities in the clinical setting.

 

[aphistis]

Agreed. Monday we're wrapping up our second PBL case out of 40 total, and it's a good way to foster independent and creative thinking in the diagnostic process. What generally happens is that the first two case sessions (three hours apiece), we're given useful but incomplete information. This forces us to think divergently to come up with ideas and hypotheses. The end of Day 2, and most of Day 3, is spent evaluating our independent research, making sure everyone understands what we came up with, and making an unofficial diagnosis if the information allows. Sometimes, it doesn't.

The process is as good or bad as you make it. If you wanted, you could probably get away with doing negligible independent research, and chiming in once in a while when you understand what's being said. Interpersonal skills are heavily stressed at IUSD, on the rationale that most of us will have entire staffs to deal with after we're out, and you can shore up an otherwise weak grade with good discussion/feedback behavior.

Problem with that is, the PBL cases are written with certain objectives in mind (the faculty tutor's job is to subtly steer things toward the case objectives when necessary, and be invisible otherwise--it's really weird having a professor in the room who <em>isn't</em> supposed to be the center of attention), and if you don't understand it for the case session, you're not going to understand it for class exams that will incorporate PBL material. I haven't taken any lecture exams yet to know how heavily the PBL material is weighted; I'll include that Wednesday.

My biggest complaint against the PBL sessions has to do with the tutors' urgent need, so far, to keep things moving at a snail's pace. Things usually proceed pretty deliberately anyway, but once in a while the group will really seize on something to invigorate the discussion. When that happens, though, the tutor tends to grab us (gently!) by the scruff of our necks to keep us from running too quickly. It's frustrating, and it keeps PBL from being as enjoyable as it otherwise could be.

Bottom line? So far, I'll give it 3 stars out of 4. Updates will doubtless follow as the year progresses and our groups/tutors reshuffle every couple months.

 

[ItsGavinC]

Bill, good post. At AZ we'll have 240 cases our first year. We just received 10 cases yesterday and we'll be working on those all week. Juggling more than one case at a time really requires some though-process, but so far I've found it to be a good experience.

What I've enjoyed most thus far has been the different ideas and concepts that have come out of the research from my fellow groups members. Fun stuff.

 

[aphistis]

240 cases?! 10 cases a <em>week</em>?! 😱

Dude, Gavin, we get 10 days <em>per case</em>. I can't imagine how you'd even begin to pursue each case to any real depth, with that kind of volume hanging over your head, and still have any time left for ordinary didactic classes. How the heck does your schedule break down?

 

[ItsGavinC]

The schedule is crazy, Bill.

Our cases are online, so we interact via weblogs if we need to. Most of the time this is how we will interact. So, after a day of classes most of us will hit the cases in the evenings, or go back to school after dinner to work on the cases. Or, because we are completely wireless at all times, we can work on them during a lecture if we are bored. We are given the cases on Mondays, and have to turn in resolutions on them the following week, along with presenting them to the class/faculty.

Our instructors post the initial case description, and we all work on it, then they most more information, we work on it, they post more info, etc. (similar to what you mentioned about your PBL). The difference is that with our technology the instructors have already written all of their posts, they merely set the system to upload them to our cases at a certain time on a certain day. We are always given incomplete information, until the final posting by the professor. At that point we come to a resolution based on our past references, and then prepare to present the case.

For example, this week we are learning about Public Health and Epidemiology, so our 10 cases revolve around issues that are pertinent to that subject. The professor (this week it will be Dr. Watkins from the University of Iowa Dental School) has already written all the posts she'll need to give us to assist with our cases, and she has set them to upload at intervals she deems necessary given her lecture syllabus.

The technological aspect of our cases really speeds them up. Harvard grads only go through a total of 40 cases before receiving their DMD degrees -- we'll go through over 400 before getting our degrees. That's why I said this portion of our curriculum is "sort of" PBL -- it's more like PBL to the 10th degree. It's really a fascinating model, and it allows for a FULL PBL curriculum without taking away at all from the didactic portions.

I also appreciate the fact that it is more realistic having lots of cases on our plate at once!

 

[aphistis]

WHOOF 😛

One day, four exams. Two went spectacularly well (I'd have been very disappointed in anything less), one went satisfactorily well (anatomy lab practical), and the last I'm a little concerned about (anatomy lecture exam).

The dental hx exam was cake. We got the question list a couple weeks ago, so it's just been a matter of ignoring the lectures while you study the handout during class time. If I get less than a 95%, I'll be pretty upset.

Ditto medical terminology. We had a list of a few hundred prefixes, roots, and suffixes to learn, and to anyone with any sort of amateur medical background, it was no problem. The only one I might've missed was "thrombocytopenia"...I came up with "loss of cells due to a blood clot." Can anyone come up with a better translation of that?

The lab practical wasn't too bad, but a couple structures weren't clearly indicated, which made for some uncertainty. I'm expecting a grade of 80-90%, hopefully toward the high end.

The lecture exam...ayeesh. I thought I had a solid command of the knowledge base, but Dr. Babler found several holes 🙄 I was able to think my way through some of them, but I'm bracing myself for a C. Fortunately, I received all of last year's exams from my D2 "pro" (pro-novice is a mentoring program set up between the D1 and D2 classes), so hopefully I'll be able to target my studying more effectively when our next biweekly comes up.

For now...no studying for me! I'm taking the night off in recognition of the whole class' survival through our first round. Ciao baby! 😀

 

[Chipper]

i've been trying to stay away from the forums for a while because i think i'm starting to get the butterflies! the information posted from those who've started is so great, and i'm starting my first day in about three more weeks and will be moving out in one week.

this is my first time away from home (i commuted to school during undergrad). moving out of state and away from the fam is exciting yet kinda scary at the same time. is anyone else feeling the same way?


😕
Chipper