M1s- how was anatomy?

[theonlytycrane]

Just finished anatomy- great course, but terrible setup at my school. We blasted through it all in 7 weeks which was a bit too fast to really enjoy it.

We dissected every 3rd day at my school and it was hit-or-miss as to whether dissections were beneficial to our learning. We had a few prosections which I thought were a much better use of our time (instead of skinning and cleaning fat).

I enjoyed learning and reviewing with a small group, and found larger / mandatory peer teaching sessions a waste of time. I usually hate group studying, but I found that studying with peers that were hard working and smarter than me was extremely helpful for this course.

We had a few radiology lectures which I found awesome- it showed me that everything I was struggling to learn was like 1+1 to a radiologist.

Overall this class was both challenging and desensitizing. I remember feeling nervous to cut on my first day and by the end I was just ripping **** apart. How was it at your school?

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[TSteezy]

My school is 1 year pre-clinical, so we start every organ-based sequence with anatomy. We generally only have 1 dissection every 3 or so weeks, and they honestly don't hold us accountable for most of the minutia. Our practicals are basic, and the test questions are based on First Aid material

 

[theonlytycrane]

your school >>>

 

[naijacardriodoc]

My school is 1 year pre-clinical, so we start every organ-based sequence with anatomy. We generally only have 1 dissection every 3 or so weeks, and they honestly don't hold us accountable for most of the minutia. Our practicals are basic, and the test questions are based on First Aid material

Wow that’s awesome


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[Nucleophile1]

I'm still in anatomy - our anatomy runs the whole length of the first semester. So far, I have really enjoyed it. They don't test us on tiny minutiae but instead focus on clinical correlations which makes the class much more interesting. Our practicals are fair and consist mostly of identifying with some second and third order questions. We also have an imaging component to anatomy lab which I enjoy. We dissect once a week at my school.

 

[SouthernGent]

Dissect 2 to 3 times a week over the course of the entire first semester. Have to worry about minutia. Approx. half of our practical questions are second and third order. Practicals include cross sections, basic radiology, Cumulative questions (Obvious structures though), and 5% fetal structures. Our dissections last at least 2 hours a day with the ones towards the last half of the semester being 3hrs.

 

[Save a life]

Dissect 2 to 3 times a week over the course of the entire first semester. Have to worry about minutia. Approx. half of our practical questions are second and third order. Practicals include cross sections, basic radiology, Cumulative questions (Obvious structures though), and 5% fetal structures. Our dissections last at least 2 hours a day with the ones towards the last half of the semester being 3hrs.

Mine is similar to this. We only have embryo and radiology on the written though.

I love anatomy. I don’t mind the dissections either. I also want to be a surgeon so it’s all super relevant to my future career.

 

[mehc012]

Pretty poorly run...infrequent dissections throughout all of preclinicals, not necessarily correlating to the content topics covered elsewhere. Rads sprinkled in haphazardly, mostly just showing up on exams. We need to know minutiae, but very inconsistently. Like, we need to know more than surgeons specializing in those areas for some random subjects, and then almost no details for others, and it's not always clear which are which.

 

[SouthernGent]

Mine is similar to this. We only have embryo and radiology on the written though.

I love anatomy. I don’t mind the dissections either. I also want to be a surgeon so it’s all super relevant to my future career.

Our written exams have embryo and lots of BRSesque questions, but no image based questions. We also take it the same day as the practical which I really am not a fan of. Getting mentally exhausted/rattled by one exam (Looking at you practical), and then take the next half of the exam.

 

[sharkbyte]

My school is traditional (basic sciences M1, systems M2) so during M1 year we had anatomy throughout the entire first semester. We had 4 blocks - upper limb, GI/abdomen, pelvis and lower limb, and head and neck. The 4th block was right after winter break so anatomy actually went until early Feb instead of ending at winter break. We had dissection twice a week in groups of 5-6, usually for about 2-2.5 hours. We had lecture twice a week right before dissection. Each block had a written exam with 50 questions, mostly clinical vignettes, and then a 50 question practical with cadaver structures making up ~40 questions and the rest composed of radiology, cross sections and models. We were given a structure list (each unit had ~230-275 structures) and we had 1 minute at each station to identify the structure and write down the corresponding number on the paper. Then we went into a separate room and inputted all of our answers (structure list was taken away from us before this) into a computer.

Overall, I think anatomy is very well organized and well taught at my school. I really liked that we just did it all in one go straight for 5 ish months without having to worry about going in to lab all the time during M2 year or something. I liked the subject quite a bit but dissection lab honestly got annoying and tiring after a while. I loved my group though so that was a nice aspect of it.

 

[LibBum]

We have an integrated curriculum, so anatomy is incrementally covered throughout the first two years. We can have no labs (heme unit) to twice a week (MSK unit), just depends on the block. No dissecting, everything is already prosected and tagged. Lab is usually 2-3 hours, half the time is spent running over the tags and other half is dedicated to case studies. No practical examinations, everything is covered on our integrated 150 question exam at the end of the block. Only a few gross specimen/tag questions, the rest are clinical scenarios.

I thought it would be worse, but our professor provides detailed notes for each lab and a fair amount of practice questions to run though. Makes it pretty cake if you put in the time to cover everything.

 

[naijacardriodoc]

We have an integrated curriculum, so anatomy is incrementally covered throughout the first two years. We can have no labs (heme unit) to twice a week (MSK unit), just depends on the block. No dissecting, everything is already prosected and tagged. Lab is usually 2-3 hours, half the time is spent running over the tags and other half is dedicated to case studies. No practical examinations, everything is covered on our integrated 150 question exam at the end of the block. Only a few gross specimen/tag questions, the rest are clinical scenarios.

I thought it would be worse, but our professor provides detailed notes for each lab and a fair amount of practice questions to run though. Makes it pretty cake if you put in the time to cover everything.

that's so nice! i wish all schools had prosected labs. dissecting eats up so much time from learning/memorizing the material. and I do not think dissecting helps you learn the anatomy that much better bc you still have to look at other bodies that you did not dissect. lol

 

[ChrisMack390]

We dissected nearly every day for 7 weeks (28 dissection days total). No prosection.

It was tough, and if I was designing the schedule I would have wanted to spread it out a little more. That said, it was kind of nice just getting through all of anatomy and moving on (I would hate to have to keep doing this all year!)

 

[naijacardriodoc]

We dissected nearly every day for 7 weeks (28 dissection days total, including final exams and such). No prosection.

It was tough, and if I was designing the schedule I would have wanted to spread it out a little more. That said, it was kind of nice just getting through all of anatomy and moving on (I would hate to have to keep doing this all year!)

ugh my school has anatomy from october to may. too much. wish they focused on what is in first aid/step 1 instead of small details.

 

[Shirafune]

Just finished anatomy which is 13 weeks at my school. We dissect as a group of 4 roughly 3 times a week, 2-3 hours per dissection. I loved being in lab because it helped me learn the material so much. We have opportunities to TA for MS1s next year and even do prosections for other health professional schools during the summer.

 

[libertyyne]

1.5 hour lectures x 3-4 /week . 3 ,3 hour labs per week. Exams on minutia , practicals with second/third order questions. Difficult class. Instructor written exam.

 

[Nucleophile1]

that's so nice! i wish all schools had prosected labs. dissecting eats up so much time from learning/memorizing the material. and I do not think dissecting helps you learn the anatomy that much better bc you still have to look at other bodies that you did not dissect. lol

I actually prefer dissection because it helps me learn the anatomy, relationships, etc. I do know quite a few people who feel the way you do though.

 

[libertyyne]

I actually prefer dissection because it helps me learn the anatomy, relationships, etc. I do know quite a few people who feel the way you do though.

I felt the complete opposite. I learned more by just looking at netters. My scores went up when I stopped going to open lab.

 

[theonlytycrane]

I liked Netter's + Rohen's + prosections + good practice questions. When dissection turned into fat cleaning and digging for nerves it seemed wasteful.

 

[aymar]

Best day of the semester was my last day of anatomy lab... knowing that I would never have to spend another hour in that room ever again. Dissecting was a complete waste of time. I would have learned so much more efficiently if everything had been prosections. My school also does not have anatomy lectures, which I think is ridiculous.

 

[libertyyne]

Best day of the semester was my last day of anatomy lab... knowing that I would never have to spend another hour in that room ever again. Dissecting was a complete waste of time. I would have learned so much more efficiently if everything had been prosections. My school also does not have anatomy lectures, which I think is ridiculous.

Anatomy lectures are kind of horrible too.youtube, acland ,netters and u of m is all you need.

 

[Ho0v-man]

About to finish 1st semester. We’ve had I think over 30 dissection labs and have only 3 more to go. Our course extends into 2nd year but supposedly this semester is the most intense.

Our exams are mostly first order with maybe 20-30% 2nd order. 3rd order is rare. The reasoning is that they want to focus on making sure we know the anatomy and aren’t just using clues in a vignette to figure out the question. Obvious exceptions would be things like brachial plexus palsies or dysfunctions in gait and which muscles would be activated in each phase of gait. They’re right in this line of thinking because when I get a higher order question it’s so nice to be able to put some clues together and figure out the answer.

Minutiae is completely fair game. Not only for tests, but also for the quizzes we take before each dissection to prove that we’ve memorized the dissection instructions before we go to anatomy lab. I.e. If you know that a structure comes out of a foramen and then attaches/innervates over there be prepared for disappointment with your anatomy grade. You have to know that it passes posteriorly to these two structures until this point where it veers laterally and inferior to another structure before piercing this muscle or fascia and then attaching/innervating.

Our practicals have 30-40 tags of random stuff (most are pretty fair) with 5-10 of them being radiology images or a cross sectional slices of a cadaver. You have 1 minute per station. Fill in the blank, no multiple choice.

We also have an ultrasound course which feels like an off shoot of anatomy because we cover a lot of the MSK in ultrasound for an hour and then go to anatomy lab and dissect it.

I can’t wait until next semester bc the intensity is supposed to scale back a lot in anatomy.

 

[theonlytycrane]

I.e. If you know that a structure comes out of a foramen and then attaches/innervates over there be prepared for disappointment with your anatomy grade. You have to know that it passes posteriorly to these two structures until this point where it veers laterally and inferior to another structure before piercing this muscle or fascia and then attaching/innervating.

I just cried for you.

 

[valid username]

Anatomy is the only thing about medical school I truly hated. Ironically I thought I would like it.

The smell was more than I could handle. I blacked out several times, I vomitted frequently, and always had a headache that lasted for the rest of the night. One day I was taken to the clinic. Too embarrassed to ask, I never found out why. My bp was eighties over fifties. After that I was given fitted masks. I also started taking some kind of inhaler, oral antihistamines and ondansetron half an hour before labs. This provided partial relief, but of course the drugs made me terribly drowsy. I felt guilty for being a useless member of my lab group. The only helpful things I did were wipe foreheads with paper towels, change blades, clean tools, and fill in lab sheets. (eta: i got rashes if anything got on my scrubs.) My anatomy exam grades were very bad. The lab people were nice. After the clinic episode, they realized there was a problem. I hated feeling like a burden. Ugh. Lab sucked so much.

I have never had anything else make me sick the way lab did. Needless to say, I ruled out pathology as a specialty early on. I do sometimes wonder how many people have failed medical school because of this.

 

[sammiesings]

I thought anatomy was pretty difficult for reasons that were probably pretty specific to my school.

Overwhelmingly focused on minutiae for exams. I was never able to get a grasp on what they were really going to focus on for exams as it always felt like the stuff they seemed to "love" didn't show up as frequently on exams. An exam question could be literally anything in the lecturer written course notes even if it wasn't focused on in labs or lectures. Also, most of the course notes were very poorly written, but you were still responsible for understanding them. Definitely led to some "mind-reading" on the part of the student.

I thought anatomy at my school kinda sucked because they really did just want you to memorize things and regurgitate it. 2nd and 3rd order questions only showed up if they were so obvious and had already been discussed ad naseum in class or lab. Not the best intro to med school- sort of put a damper on my excitement and the lack of novel 2nd and 3rd order questions made studying disengaging. I did well though once I stopped fighting what a bore it was.

The thing I'm going to appreciate SO much going forward is not having 3 hour dissections 3 times a week. They took so much time out of my days and the way they were scheduled SUCKED. All in the middle of the day- I never could get used to it. I could never get into a real groove in the am/before lab and was too tired/burnt out to pick it back up after lab. Looking forward to actually enjoying studying/being able to get things done during the day.