human anatomy vs vertebrate anatomy

[enfuego]

I know anatomy is strongly recommended (not required at any of the schools I'm looking at). Unfortunately, the gross human anatomy class at my school is resevered for certain College of Health majors, so it's nearly impossible for other students to take that class. Hundreds of pre-med kids try to get in every year - it never works. I was thinking about, instead, taking the comparative vertebrate anatomy class offered by the biology department.

Does anyone have any experience with vertebrate anatomy being accepted/rejected as a substitute for human anatomy?

(I'm taking human systems physiology, so I'm not totally out of the loop)

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[JamesOSU]

Well, like you said, it is not required for D-school. While vertebrate anatomy is not going to be as in depth with the things you will learn later, it can't hurt. But vertebrate anatomy is so broad that I don't think it really applies to dental school in the adcoms eyes.

 

[Lulu2809]

I took the same route as you (Human Phys and Vertebrate Anatomy). I was never asked any questions, BUT have been working with my professor since to focus on the human body in order to be prepped for D school.

 

[BillytheEchidna]

You might want to consider taking Histology instead. I knew very little about the subject before I took the class ("Identifying tissues? How hard could it be?!"), but it ended up being basically micro-anatomy and physiology (on a cellular level). Very intense but a lot of fun. Many of the slides were from animal cells, since the physiology of the organs is very similar across species. You would probably learn more about how the human body works in Histology than you would in an animal physiology class, and on a very detailed level. I loved it!

(BTW UT-Memphis requires either Histology, Comparative Vertebrate Anatomy, or upper-level Microbiology).

 

[mycoal127]

I took both, and human was definately more in depth. However, the majority of Pre-Dents at my school take only Vertebrate Anatomy (which is a pre-req for Human Anatomy)

 

[sony102]

I took both human anatomy and comparative vertebrate anatomy(CVA)... they were both about the same thing...in cva we dissected the cat in lab wich had the same muscles and organs as humans so that just inforced my knowledge about muscles and organs of human. I got accepted this cycle
I didn't have human physiology in my transcript when i applied but i heard it should be really helpful in dschool that's why i am going back to school to take it now. also baylor dschool advised my to take human phys. at my interview

 

[mycoal127]

Physiology was one of the best classes to take, I think it helped me for the DAT much more than any other class