How much do you retain from your class lecture??

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socrates89

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I just wanted to know as to weather everyone remembers and memorizes all of the professors notes and words in depth or are we suppose to understand the concepts and forget the details of the lectures lets say if were talking about the chapter on membrane and action potentials in guyton and the professor gives notes on it can someone using the topic show me where to draw the line as to what to remember and what not to remember?

OK and my second question is

Will we have to read the whole guyton book or only certain parts from it? and has anyone read the whole book during their physiology course and would I be crazy to say to read the whole book?

Finally how much are we suppose to memorize in guyton and how much are we suppose to just understand? Like talking about the Golgi Apparatus and it functions do we have to know what substances that it forms like hyaluronic acid and chondroitin sulfate which also have functions that were suppose to memorize pg. 21 of guyton eleventh edition Do we have to memorize things like that for class tests, the boards and steps???

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If in doubt, yes, you have to know it. You won't ever have to memorize things like DNA sequences of a gene, but if it's in Guyton, it's fair game for a phys exam or Step 1. If it says that X&Y process is extremely rare and only occurs after V&W happens, then I wouldn't focus on it, but you're going to have to understand kidney physiology fairly well if you want to understand how any diuretic works.
 
In our school Guyton's textbook is treated like the Bible here, but that's because the two authors are from our school. The professors though largely want us to focus on the concepts and know any twists or exceptions to them. Our tests are largely straightforward (except GI and repro) that focus on the concepts. I'd say any concept in Guyton discussed is fair game, but you don't need to know the details of the experiments they used and such. The pathophys described in the lessons is pretty high-yield though, considering that it has a lot of clinical relevance.
 
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ok can u guys please eleborate I don't understand what you mean by fair game--- that it must be memorized or you just have to learn the concepts and not memorize the detailed processes all the functions of something etc.

So how can guyton be fair game its like 1000 pages how can anyone memorize and understand the concepts of the all its topics or even learn 1/10 of all its contents (by memorizing the details)
 
ok can u guys please eleborate I don't understand what you mean by fair game--- that it must be memorized or you just have to learn the concepts and not memorize the detailed processes all the functions of something etc.

So how can guyton be fair game its like 1000 pages how can anyone memorize and understand the concepts of the all its topics or even learn 1/10 of all its contents (by memorizing the details)

When you take the test you will know how much you need to ratchet up or cut back. You HAVE to master the material that is presented to you. Anything in lecture, lab, text that was assigned is fair game (suiable for testing purposes). The manner in which you master the material is up to you but your test grade will let you know if your mastery is adequate or inadequate.
 
ok can u guys please eleborate I don't understand what you mean by fair game--- that it must be memorized or you just have to learn the concepts and not memorize the detailed processes all the functions of something etc.

So how can guyton be fair game its like 1000 pages how can anyone memorize and understand the concepts of the all its topics or even learn 1/10 of all its contents (by memorizing the details)

There's a pocket guide that accompanies the textbook which is pretty high yield. It's essentially a cliff-notes/concept outline version of the textbook. If you can ever take a look at that, I'd say anything in that is definitely fair game for your test. Then again, you also need to know the style of your testing professor. Just remember that while doing well on your tests is important, it's far more important to understand the concepts presented and try to retain it; you'll be seeing it again on Step 1.
 
So how can guyton be fair game its like 1000 pages how can anyone memorize and understand the concepts of the all its topics or even learn 1/10 of all its contents (by memorizing the details)
They're concepts, not discrete facts. You don't have to sit down and right out all 1000 pages of details in Guyton, because those are only there to help you understand the concepts. Once you realize how X drug lowers fluid volume and Y body system attempts to correct for the change, it starts making sense.
 
Perhaps not everything in Guyton is directly relevant to what we need to know. But I would venture to say that the larger bulk of it is. It's true that there is like 1000 pages of relatively small type. The amount of information in it is immense, no doubt about it. However, the physiology discussed in Guyton is not really advanced physiology. For the most part, the topics are at the core of our medical foundation. Reading and comprehending all of the material in that text is not impossible. In fact, you probably should master most of that material to just get a firm grounding in how the human body normally functions.

Even at a slow reading pace of 10 pages per hour, it will only take about 100 hours to read the whole thing. ;) Heck, spend 8-10 hours a week reading and you will have that whole book licked in less than a semester, with plenty of time for going over your class notes and syllabus. From what I hear, Step 1 is very heavy on Phys and Path. Kinda the blood and guts of medicine, which makes sense.
 
1. I remember most of what is said in lectures - that covers pretty much all major "how and why" concepts and a decent amount of details. I study to refresh those details and try to move them into long term memory.

2. Our lectures don't really cover all of the topics that I think are important for a physician to know, but then again I don't see how they can in the time allotted. We tend to get most things covered in great detail, with a few subjects not really discussed that probably should be (but very few of those).

3. Guyton is "learnable." You need to understand concepts. There are probably "random fact" stuff in Guyton that very few people will remember, even after considerable study, but those are generally reference number types of facts that can be easily looked up.
 
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