Okay now that the semester is over and I got some free time now to write up the post-bacc “how-to” guide that I promised a while ago on this forum. This guide pertains only to the post bacc 2016-2017 year so upcoming years may differ slightly as changes are made to curriculum and professors teaching courses. So please do not use this guide as an end all be all but more of a write up on what to expect out of the classes you will be taking. Some background information on me is that I have previously taken Physiology as an undergrad and majored in Biochemistry. Other than those two classes, it was my first time taking any of this material so as I write this out you will see some comments on how my study style is slightly different for every class as well as adjustments in study style I had to make for certain classes. I think that for the post-bacc, your study style must be dynamic and adaptable since every class’ material is different and you have multiple professors teaching a class. Like some students have previously said, this program is quite literally a boot-camp for medical school. LECOM already sees the qualities of a doctor in you, but you haven’t proven your academic power to go through med school just yet. This is your chance to show them that you have what it takes to succeed in med school or at least the boot camp will kick you into the right mindset to be prepared to succeed in med school. I honestly didn’t know what to expect, and this program felt like a boot camp that forced me to become a better student…a med school ready student now. After this program, I feel confident that I will be a successful med student. The first semester is relatively easier than the second semester, but I only say this in hindsight. What I mean by that is that both semesters are difficult, but for different reasons. First semester is all about getting used to the testing style, the lecturing style, the clinical based questions. You will try new study strategies and hopefully by the end of the first semester you have come to a “distillation” of what methods work best for you. For example I joined a study group of just a few students which ballooned to almost a dozen students. We tried getting together as a group to go over the material together. We quickly found out that was a massive waste of a time because everyone learns at a different pace and what is hard for someone may be easy for someone else. Eventually we figured out that self-study or silent study with 1 or 2 partners works best for our whole group. Late into the first semester I finally figured out my best study habit and that is to silently study with a single partner. I like studying with a partner because we can keep each other on track and ask questions as needed. This worked for me, but it may not work for you. First semester is your opportunity to figure out what works for you. In addition, this is also your opportunity to figure out the best way to get information into your head. While studying for most classes, I usually have my ppt slides out on my laptop and a blank piece of printer paper to take short notes on. I usually will just write out key words or major topics that I find difficult and use this note sheet in the future to figure out what I need to study. A lot of students like to take the lecture objectives (found beginning of every ppt) and write out notes on paper/laptop based on just those. Lecture objectives are generally high yield and will net you a lot of point on test day. I just like to refer to the lecture objectives after studying and see if I can answer the questions or expand on the topic in my head and see how much I can recall. I’ll add to my notes anything I should go over if im not strong at a certain lecture objective.
Physiology: This is the first class you will be taught your first semester and is arguably the toughest class you will take first semester. (I thought Microbiology was harder, but that probably has to do with me taking phys previously). The first day of class is pretty simple to get you used to the lecturing style, but after that you are running. Because you are in class for about 3hrs a day on this subject, you cannot simply use the weekends to study or a few nights before the exam to study for this class, you must study on a daily basis. I would normally go to the gym and eat dinner to clear my mind after lecture and then review the material that was taught that day. Most of the time I would be able to review the material the same night and finish it leaving the next morning free, but again if you’ve never taken phys then you will have to continue reviewing the next morning/over the weekend. Usually an hour before class, I would suggest previewing the days material as ppts are posted several days in advance for you. This will definitely help with understanding material during lecture. I didn’t start doing this until second semester, but I can see the benefit from starting early on especially in physiology and maybe biochemistry. The key to physiology is that it has less to do with memorizing the material, but more with understanding the concepts behind every process that is presented to you. What I did was after reviewing a concept, I would mentally rehearse the process in my head until I can go through it without referring to a diagram or whatnot. You must have a very good understanding of physiology in order to answer the questions they will be asking you on the exams. Remember that you are now in medical school, so they will be asking many clinically relevant questions. What this means is take note of any diseases that are presented in class/notes and understand the physiology behind those diseases. Know their presentation and how you test for them/diagnose them. I simply just got a piece of paper and listed all the diseases in a list and kind of just mentally asked myself what physiologic function is messed up, how the patient would present it, etc. Doing this will at least give you a few points on the exam. The school provides these EXCEL sessions to help you with your test taking strategies and they may be helpful to you or maybe not. For me, I didn’t find it that helpful and stopped going since the practice questions they asked in the sessions were generally not in line with what was asked in the exams. EXCEL is not mandatory, so you don’t have to go if you don’t feel like its helpful to you. The first exam is a week after school starts. They do this to basically get you used to the exam taking style, and kick you into studying since some students may fall back into their old undergrad ways and study last minute. Basically, this exam serves to scare you into studying for future exams. Its not worth as much as the other physio exams so doing poorly is okay. At the same time, this exam is only slightly easier than the other physio exams. Just because it’s a week of material doesn’t mean you can slack off! Use this opportunity of relatively less material to be tested on to your advantage and get a good grade on this exam! The key to this program is to get the highest possible grade in every class you can since you will only have 3 days to study for your cumulative final nothing is stressful as borderline grades going into the final. Many students swear by the BRS physiology book for its practice questions. I used this book and it was helpful, but not a godsend. I never read the textbook, but I know some students that did. I would only refer to the text book for understanding of difficult concepts, otherwise it is a lot of reading time which could be used to simply study the ppts which are more high yield. REMEMBER, understanding everything is key to physiology! Be able to know every process or concept like the back of your hand and think of ways those processes can get messed up and how they would present in a patient. For example if you learn about how the Na/K pump works to maintain an ion gradient on the cell membrane, what would happen if it stopped working? Always ask yourself and your friends questions as you study the material. I found that having your friends quiz you on the material tremendously helped me study for classes. But remember that you simply CANNOT memorize your way through this class as you will not be successful. Don’t memorize, UNDERSTAND IT! You also have several professors that teach this class and come in to teach their respective units so be prepared for change in teaching styles as you move from one unit to another. I think our class had 3 professors: Johanneson that taught the electrophysiology/CNS, Lee that taught cardio/resp, and Jones that taught renal. Most students struggled with Lee most likely due to his lecturing style where the slides don’t have much information in them and the subject was relatively hard. I would try and take really good notes if he teaches you guys and refer to the textbook to solidify your understanding of the material. This class also only has 3 exams: exam 1 is 1 week of material, exam 2 with 2 weeks, and exam 3 with 3 weeks of material. As you can see, this is LECOM’s way of gradually ramping up the amount of material you will need to study for each exam. Be warned that just because your exam is 3 weeks away doesn’t mean its time to chill and party all weekend. This is a trick, so don’t fall for it. Exam 3 is the most difficult of the semester due to the amount of material and focuses on 2 of your hardest classes of the semester. Start studying right away, but don’t go so hard you burn out.
Biochemistry: Well this was my undergrad major and I barely studied for this class so I’m not sure how much advice I can give for this subject so take this with a grain of salt. I guess this class is similar to physiology (high difficulty) that you will have to focus more on understanding the concepts rather than brute memorization, but some memorization will be necessary at times. Again know your diseases and clinical presentations. The class will start off straightforward and get progressively harder. Dr. Speelman will be a godsend for many students as she will teach this class in a way that you will understand and her exam questions are pretty fair. Generally any topic that a lot of time is spent on will be high yield on the exam. Theres a lot of information to be learnt in this class especially if you’ve never taken biochem or are weak in this subject. Focus on the Learning Objectives and be able to answer those, this is probably the most high yield method of study for this class. I’ll let another former post-bacc fill in on the “how to” for this class.
Histology: This class I thought was very enjoyable with all of the interesting images of tissues that we look at and would rate it more medium than easy in level of difficulty. At first everything may kind of look the same since most tissues are stained purple and red, but after spending some time it will become a lot easier as you figure this class out. Our class was taught mostly by Professor Labranche and she speaks very fast so be prepared for her lecturing style. The material is fairly straightforward and I would say this is like a lightweight taste of how anatomy is taught. Know the theory from lecture, and especially know how to identify things on the histo slides. I would suggest googling images of labeled histology slides to help you get better at identifying histological structures. This will help you in the sense that your lecture slides and exam slides will not be the same so being able to tell whats what in different slides helps a ton. I did notice that some of the pictures on the exam were the same or similar to ones I saw online. There aren’t too many slides per lecture, so knowing everything from the slides is essential as detail questions do pop up often. This is also the first class I think where the professors start giving you 6-10 answer choices for some questions on the exam. What this means is that you really want to know the material and be able to mentally answer to yourself before looking at the choices otherwise it can be daunting. Luckily, I don’t remember them asking any clinically relevant questions in this class so that helps big time. Yes you can memorize your way through this class. Other than that, this class is one of those 1 unit classes, so take it seriously because a fail is a fail and you will not be able to matriculate. The last histo exam (I think exam 6) was significantly more difficult than the rest of the exam, so prepare for that. I lost my A because of that exam. The final is also somewhat difficult in the sense that you will be looking at multiple tissues that you’ve learned and have to tell what kind of tissue it is. Histologically, smooth muscle, connective tissue, and nerves almost look exactly the same, so remember to figure out what little differences there are between the tissues to properly ID them otherwise those 10 answer choice questions will mess you up real bad.
Microbiology: This class was my worst grade first semester though most would consider it “medium difficulty”. This class is literally just memorization and not many conceptual questions are asked. I generally struggle in memorization classes like this, but I was able to use this class as a learning opportunity to get better for future classes like this (virology). I hate memorization so I had to get good at that real quick since a lot of med school material is memorization. The professors suggest you make bacteria charts to help you study and memorize all of the details about each bacteria. This was great advice and I wish I followed that advice starting from the beginning. You must know the ins and outs of every bacteria that is presented here and know every minute detail that’s in the lecture slides. The first exam doesn’t have too many points so this will be their way of giving you a little taste of what to expect on the exam. I didn’t really study that hard for the first exam and got a C, and that kicked me into really studying for the second exam. I studied my butt off and still got a C+ on the second exam. I was annoyed at my grade when it came out, so I had to figure out why I was doing so poorly even though I studied so hard. A few days after the exam is the exam review session where you get the opportunity to look through your exam on your laptop for an hour before lecture. I used this time to literally figure out how each question was written whether I got it right or wrong. I tried to recall what went through my head trying to answer the question and asked why I got something wrong. I finally saw a pattern and adjusted my study method for the final. To my surprise, I was able to pull up to a B after doing really well on the final. Don’t mess up like me! Create bacteria charts from the beginning and make sure you know each bacteria inside and out as well as clinical presentation on the patient. The exam questions are also mostly 2nd order here so again make sure you know the ins and outs of every bacteria.
Cell Biology & Genetics: I’m just gonna clump these two classes together since they are mostly taught by the same professor (Hussein and Hudder). Cell biology should mostly be review from general biology and genetics is pretty much also review from the genetics we’ve all learned in gen bio. I would put these two classes under the “easy” category so long as you spend sufficient amount of time studying for the material. Again don’t get complacent and brush off these easy classes and not study for them. Husein has in class group quizzes and are graded for a small amount of points, but a point is a point. The points here aren’t that important, but the quiz questions are. Some of these questions seem to appear on the exam/final in verbatim or at least very similar. Sometimes the questions will be hard and Hussein will let you know he won’t be testing you on that question. I guess he adds them in to make you think. You can’t write down the questions he asks in class, but a lot of people will flag their ppt slides that are relevant to the question that was asked since you can have your laptop/notes out during the quizzes. Don’t think about typing up the questions or taking pictures
Critical Thinking: This would be another one of those “easy A” classes. This class is mostly self-directed so the first 3 exams are just simply word roots in medicine and is fairly easy as long as you go through the online reading and do the practice quizzes on the website. I pretty much studied up to an hour for the first 3 exams for this, so that should tell you how simple this is. Theres no trick here, just remember to actually put in the little time for this. But aim to get 100% on the first 3 exams as this class starts to get a little difficult later into the semester as you will have to do an assigned reading on a journal article (we had the now retracted Wakefield paper linking vaccines to autism) and will have to answer questions on it on the exam. According to the exam breakdown, most of the class did pretty bad on that exam so those buffer points from previous exams will come out to be handy if you need it. Also there is no final for this class! One other note is that there are a few online quizzes for points and no reminder email is sent out for you to complete them. So do the online quizzes ASAP or set a reminder for yourself to complete them by the deadline. Remind your friends, cause theres always someone who forgets.
2nd Semester stuff:
Immunology: This class is taught by Hussein and the class should be fairly straightforward in the sense that you’ve already had this guy previously and already know his teaching style. Again there are in class quizzes and questions appear on exam in verbatim. Just to give you guys an idea on how easy it is to fall behind in this program, I got sick the first week of second semester and barely studied for 3 days. As a result, I got a C on the one and only immunology exam since this is a 1 unit class. I ended up over-studying for the final just to make sure I didn’t fail the class. Remember you cannot fail a class, so I dodged a bullet here. This also where your nice first semester GPA buffer comes in handy as insurance if **** hits the fan, but failing is still not an option. Difficulty: medium (the material is easy, but there was a daunting amount of information presented for a 1 unit class. Yes you can memorize ur way through
Virology: This class is also taught by Hussein and again in class quizzes are helpful. I studied for this class the same way I was supposed to study for microbiology and did great on both of the exams. (I guess I finally learned how to study for microbio/viro at this point). Just like microbio, exam questions will mostly be clinical based but way less second order questions. Remember, know the weird/minute differences in viruses and their symptoms/presentation in patients. I didn’t tell you this, but Hussein loves Hantavirus. Difficulty: easy. Yes you can memorize
Pathology: This class starts off fairly easy, but progressively gets more difficult every exam. Don’t think it will be an easy A just because you did well on the first exam like I did! This class is 4 units and getting an A in this class is attainable for a nice GPA boost so long you study properly, but I neglected this class and only looked at the ppt once or twice for the second exam and failed that exam. I had to study harder for 3rd/4th exam to basically maintain a B since I was out of the A range. Don’t neglect this class like me and get the A for those precious GPA points! This class is also mostly self-directed study and gives you a taste of the PBL/DS pathway life. Because of that, it validated my decision to go to the LDP pathway since at this point I know I do not perform with self directed study. Use your post-bacc first semester to guage which pathway will work for you. I was leaning towards PBL at the beginning, but as the semester progressed I learned that I actually perform better if I have guidance from lecture. You can use second semester to decide too, but acceptances start coming out in Jan/Feb for the 3.4+ students so it may not be an option to continue pondering what pathway to choose. The ppt for this class is posted sometimes on the day of self-study so at times you can’t study in advance if you have time before the actual “lecture” day. The ppts at times can be missing information as it is outlined in the Learning Objectives, so using the book in this class is probably a good idea. I didn’t use the book as much as I should’ve, but everyone I knew that did read the book did really well in the class. Before every exam, there is an in class q&a with the professor where you can ask questions to clarify on topics. We had professor Stevens and some students noticed that if no one asks questions she will basically go through the ppt slides and point out high yield info and basically tell you what and what not to study as well as give hints to whats on the exam. So if Stevens is the professor again next year, don’t be “that guy” who asks a million questions during the q&a sesh. There are in class quizzes on the day of the q&a session, so don’t miss points there. The quiz isn’t really any easier than the exam, so I would study for it as if I were studying for the exam. Luckily, Stevens will sometimes specify which lecture she is going to quiz on, but sometimes not. Difficulty: medium. Yes you can memorize.
Anatomy: I’ve never taken anatomy prior to the post-bacc program and it was really difficult for me to start off, but it got progressively bearable after I figured out the way exam questions are written for this class. Even students that have previously taken undergrad anatomy have said that this class was harder, but as long as you figure out the testing style you should be good. I have no way to compare post-bacc anatomy to other anatomy classes, but I believe that the difficulty in this class really comes from the way exam questions are asked. Pointing to structures and naming them doesn’t exist on the exam. Rather, everything is clinically relevant. The only “name the anatomical structure” type of questions will be the histology questions that are asked. The histology portion of anatomy is basically like a continuation of the histology that was learnt in first semester, so don’t forget the histology you learned first semester! In addition, all of the histology you will learn will not be taught in lecture, it will be under directed study. Be sure to use the histology notes(class portal) and the virtual histology website posted on the class portal and refer to the book as needed. Histology is another one of those things that I neglected in anatomy and literally all of points I missed in this class came from histo. As for the actual anatomy, professor Kulesza talks pretty fast, but not as fast as Labranche and sets high expectations for students. Most of his anatomy slides are not well labeled, so they need to be filled in during lecture. Because the pace of lecture is fast, what I did was I would add arrows and labels to the pictures in the slides during lecture while a friend would focus on only taking notes. This would later be compiled after lecture to have a proper ppt that labeled and with notes. If you have Labranche teaching, then you won’t have to take as many notes/labels since her slides are generally filled in for you. On the Neck/Thorax, and Abdomen units, you wont have to take super good notes since Kulesza will provide you with notes on the class portal that you can use to study off of. These notes are very detailed and at times have more information than you need to know. You especially want to study the Neck notes inside and out and highlight the high yield info. This is arguable the hardest exam and the Neck notes saved me for this. (ended up being my best anatomy exam somehow). The other very very very very high yield item for anatomy is the Clincial Supplement that is posted on the portal. Many students have taken this file to a printshop and got it spiral bound. This book will probably be the #1 source of points you can get on exam day. It is pretty short for each unit, but try and read it every day and basically memorize it. A lot of exam questions will come out of this and on things sometimes not covered in lecture, but is covered on the exam. As for the anatomy forum quizzes, they are usually given on “anatomy forum” days which usually occur after all of the lectures for a given unit have been completed. This can range from a few days to a few weeks between lecture and the forum day. The best advice I can give about the forum quizzes is that do not take them lightly, treat them as if it is the actual exam day. A forum ppt is usually posted well in advance and usually contains 15-25 slides containing relevant clinical cases to the current unit. The best way to study for the forum quiz is to literally sit down and figure out the forum cases/questions and many times the clinical supplement will be very helpful in answering the forum questions. The time they gave us between the last Neck lecture and Neck forum was a single weekend. That was not enough time to go through such a complicated area of the body and be able to answer questions on the quiz and the average grade was a fail. In hindsight, focusing only on the forum ppt and the clinical supplement will be high yield for the forum quizzes if you are stretched for time. The quiz breakdown showed many students getting 1/10 and me not far from that. It was after this quiz I had to re-assess how I studied for anatomy. The key for me is to start off with the overly detailed notes to gain a foundation, then move onto the clinical supplement and forum and focus on those two things. Like I said, neck was my highest scoring anatomy exam and I credit that to me finally figuring out how to study properly for this class. The two exams after Neck, I didn’t score as high since pharmacology got mixed in and there were 4 weeks between exams. Nevertheless, I studied wayyy less for the last two anatomy exam just from the simple fact I knew exactly how to study for this class. Just to give you guys an idea, I spent maybe 4-6hrs studying for the anatomy exam 4/5 the day/night before the exam since most of my time went into studying for pharm. This doesn’t mean those exams were easy, what this means is you must be able to plan your studying schedule well. There is 4 weeks of material for the 4th and 5th exam so studying well in advance will give you ample time to focus on subjects like pharm. A lot of my friends and I found anatomy sticks pretty well in your brain even if you haven’t reviewed it in a week or two. So studying really well for anatomy in advance is key here since you will be pressed for pharm on exam 4/5. Exam 4 in 2nd semester is the hardest exam overall (Neck/exam 3 is hardest anatomy exam) just from the fact that it is based on 4 weeks of material meaning there is nearly 200 questions on the exam, 4hrs long, and includes your two hardest classes (anatomy/pharm). Exam 5 will also have 4 weeks of material, but is relatively easier in the sense that it is the easiest anatomy exam (pelvis). The final is pretty straightforward, focus on the clinical supplement, the forum ppts, the anatomy review session ppt, and know your Back/Spine anatomy well. Answer choices on the anatomy final are also relatively easier to eliminate vs the exams. Difficulty: more on the Hard side than Medium. Yes you can memorize your way though this class, but conceptualization helps too.
