In what format does your school lecture?

[Vancomycin12]

I am a first year and am a little discouraged w/ the professors at my school. I wanted to reach out to see if anyone else felt the same way as me.

My professors at my school are sub-par to say the least. I have had a big problem with the way the material has been presented and feel that there has to be a better way. The powerpoints are all over the place and it makes it extremely difficult to organize. In fact, the main problem I am having is that i spend SO much time every evening going through all the lectures and outlining/organizing them (into the way that they should have been presented in the first place), that I don't even have time to actually learn/study the information. I usually have to just wait until the wknd to study all of the outlines I made due to the massive amount of time it takes just to organize everything during the week. This is not me being OCD or requiring a specific method of learning, it is just what has to be done prior to studying the poorly presented material.

So, my question is: Does anyone else have this problem at their school? Is this just the way it is, or do I just have sub-par lecturers?

In what method does your school teach? Is it purely powerpoint like mine? Or, do you get learning module packets/guides?

Sorry for the rant..

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[OveractiveBrain]

I am a first year and am a little discouraged w/ the professors at my school. I wanted to reach out to see if anyone else felt the same way as me.

My professors at my school are sub-par to say the least. I have had a big problem with the way the material has been presented and feel that there has to be a better way. The powerpoints are all over the place and it makes it extremely difficult to organize. In fact, the main problem I am having is that i spend SO much time every evening going through all the lectures and outlining/organizing them (into the way that they should have been presented in the first place), that I don't even have time to actually learn/study the information. I usually have to just wait until the wknd to study all of the outlines I made due to the massive amount of time it takes just to organize everything during the week. This is not me being OCD or requiring a specific method of learning, it is just what has to be done prior to studying the poorly presented material.

So, my question is: Does anyone else have this problem at their school? Is this just the way it is, or do I just have sub-par lecturers?

In what method does your school teach? Is it purely powerpoint like mine? Or, do you get learning module packets/guides?

Sorry for the rant..

Expert in your field != expert in delivering information to others

Delivery of information from PhDs != delivery of useful information for MDs.

Lectures suck. TBLs suck more. Most people figure out going to class is ******ed unless the tests they give come straight out of lecture. Otherwise, read books on your own (mostly review books except for path), do questions, read first aid. I sat through lecture first year, and rather enjoyed most classes. I learned me lesson in second year, where I got more out of 4 hours of reading than 12 hours of lecture.

 

[darrylportelli]

we also have some lectures that I nod off compleatly, and others that I understand something..... mostly the lectures I dont understand anything..... we have a type of small group tutorials called CTS (critical thinking skills) where we have a case and questions on it to discuss, and those I understand preety good in them since they are small groups.......

about notes, we are given mostly powerpoints which sometimes are understandable and sometimes compleatly vague.... my method is to read through the powerpoint and stop on every slide making my own notes on that slide....my notes are full of pictures that I draw myself... youtube is a very good source of info these days, basically use the slides as a guideline on what to study..... this method takes a **** TON of time...... you will find yourself spending days of study to finish just one topic, but I think it paid out for me in this semester (1st year 1st semester) cos I had my exams this week and I think I did preety good.....where others complained about knowing nothing on certain essays (because in the powerpoints stuff was only mentioned vaguely), I made the essays with ease since I scrutinised every slide

we had one lecturer on respiratory physiology who is very organised and gave us kick ass notes and slides that go with the notes...we had our respiratory system exam today infact and I think I did good in it thanks to his notes.....but these are a rare occasion...a comodity if you will...other times you have to scrutinise each slide and read from books and the INTERNET (best source I found yet)... use the slides as objectives

hope this helps, I am in the same water as you, hang in there- we'll get there eventually!!

 

[FIREitUP]

Expert in your field != expert in delivering information to others

Delivery of information from PhDs != delivery of useful information for MDs.

Lectures suck. TBLs suck more. Most people figure out going to class is ******ed unless the tests they give come straight out of lecture. Otherwise, read books on your own (mostly review books except for path), do questions, read first aid. I sat through lecture first year, and rather enjoyed most classes. I learned me lesson in second year, where I got more out of 4 hours of reading than 12 hours of lecture.

I agree with this 100%, but what do you mean by not using review books for path?

 

[Jtslater]

I am a first year and am a little discouraged w/ the professors at my school. I wanted to reach out to see if anyone else felt the same way as me.

My professors at my school are sub-par to say the least. I have had a big problem with the way the material has been presented and feel that there has to be a better way. The powerpoints are all over the place and it makes it extremely difficult to organize. In fact, the main problem I am having is that i spend SO much time every evening going through all the lectures and outlining/organizing them (into the way that they should have been presented in the first place), that I don't even have time to actually learn/study the information. I usually have to just wait until the wknd to study all of the outlines I made due to the massive amount of time it takes just to organize everything during the week. This is not me being OCD or requiring a specific method of learning, it is just what has to be done prior to studying the poorly presented material.

So, my question is: Does anyone else have this problem at their school? Is this just the way it is, or do I just have sub-par lecturers?

In what method does your school teach? Is it purely powerpoint like mine? Or, do you get learning module packets/guides?

Sorry for the rant..

I feel your pain, we are moving to "active learning" from the type of lectures you describe. Thus far active learning has consisted of us getting pimped weekly on what they like to call "team Based Learning" (TBL) and some really poor excuses for lectures. Since the initiation of the so called active learning (GI and Renal Blocks) we have been given practice questions that correspond to lectures and the EXACT questions have been used on the exam. Something tells me this is not what the LCME had in mind in their new outline for curriculum design. The worst part of all this is that the course director is jumping for joy because the exam averages are up compared to the previous years. I can not understand how something like this is allowed to go on. This is why I'm not in class right now and why i choose wisely on what lectures i attend. Of the two types of curricula i would vote for the lecture based style, because at least at my school we do not have an attendance policy. The TBL based or whatever they are calling this scam they are running now requires attendance and that we study what they are pimping us on when they want us to. I prefer to study the material at my pace, in my time frame, and to be examined once all the material is tied together in my mind (however loosely that may be).

 

[Vancomycin12]

I don't mind pathology as much since I can just read Robbins and do their review questions, and not even spend an ounce of time on the powerpoints. This sucks because I dont really want to teach myself path, but I guess that's what you have to do when your professor is awful.

My school is pretty random w/ our courses, so we have path, micro, pharm, cell bio, genetics, biochem, in any given week. It is hard to go to books for information because everything is coming from random ass spots and I would spend even more time trying to find it in books!

Pharm is the worst-- How hard is it to just put drugs and their mechanisms on a slide? Instead, I have to go fishing for what drug is under what category and what drug does what, etc. So poorly presented.

Also, where do you practice micro questions? Or pharm questions? Any good recommendations?

 

[Vancomycin12]

.

 

[FIREitUP]

In addition to the above randomness of our lectures....Our tests involve 3 questions from every lecture. So for instance, we have 50 lectures on the last test from random lectures of all of the above subjects. Questions were completely ambiguous and its virtually impossible to remember every detail on ~5000 slides for one test. Especially when you have 2 tests right before the BIG one. Our avg on the last test was a 70, and a 68 the test before that. Our professors are saying we need to come to class but How am I supposed to go to class when the lectures are abysmal?

Don't go to class. Don't listen to professors. You need to take the time out to find where this information is presented in review books (constanzo physio, lippincott illustrated review biochem, etc.) and study it from those sources. Before the test glance over the slides and memorize the minutiae.

 

[TallScrubs]

In addition to the above randomness of our lectures....Our tests involve 3 questions from every lecture. So for instance, we have 50 lectures on the last test from random lectures of all of the above subjects. Questions were completely ambiguous and its virtually impossible to remember every detail on ~5000 slides for one test. Especially when you have 2 tests right before the BIG one. Our avg on the last test was a 70, and a 68 the test before that. Our professors are saying we need to come to class but How am I supposed to go to class when the lectures are abysmal?

Ha ha ha...sounds like you go to PCOM

 

[Vancomycin12]

Is anyone else feeling the same way? There has to be a better way

 

[PrideNeverDie]

Is anyone else feeling the same way? There has to be a better way

everyone feels the same way you do

the best way is to read on your own and take everything your prof says with a grain of salt

 

[ucladoc2b]

Seriously, medical schools are experts at wasting time, resources, and money.

The worst part is that I am PAYING what amounts to the cost of a very nice car for them to do so. Medical schools should consider just buying everyone a set of BRS books (maybe some others), a subscription to USMLE World, and some NBME practice tests. Total cost for two years of med education: $2000 or less.

Some days, I wish med school came with a money-back guarentee. Or that the federal government would require some sort of effective and efficient outcome measure before they got a portion of their money.

 

[ucsfstudents]

PPT mostly. The key is in how they present the material. Is it 10 slides with great teaching, or 60 slides with 1 slide per minute? Some people are better at teaching than others.