Med school biochem difficulty

[litotes]

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Hi med students, just curious how you'd compare the difficulty of your average med school biochemistry class to an intro biochemistry class at a top 5 undergrad. In terms of depth of coverage, exam difficulty or whatever else. I ask because I'm studying for a metabolism exam for said undergrad biochemistry class and it's kinda kicking my ass lol. Have a good one

 

[famoussquamous]

Hard to say since I don't know which medical school you're going to or how those professors write the exams, but at my school it was easier than the undergrad tests (you just had to memorize a bunch of minutiae instead of understanding all the chemical reactions like I had to in ugrad). That said you'll still put a good deal of time into studying for biochem even if you had the material already.

 

[ewax]

lol, med school biochem and ug biochem are two different animals.

In med school, biochem is geared toward clinically knowing what happens if certain enzyme/vitamins/proteins are deficient and what kind of presentations you see in patients.

fwiw, I thought med school biochem was way easier/interesting. Also, you won't have to know anything about plants.

Good luck.

 

[repititionition]

You'll be fine.

I thought I was working hard/near-maximally to get a good grade in an UG biochem class and had the same worry.

Then I got to med school and realized I hadn't even come close to my maximal studying effort. I didn't come out of our biochem block top of my class, but I passed. If an admissions committee lets you in, the odds are you will, too.

 

[Derivations]

Biochemistry in medical school is easier in some ways but harder in others. Overall I would say med school biochem is easier than UG biochem.

In UG (at least for me, a biochemistry major) we had to learn all the structures and mechanisms of every reaction, plus all the enzymes in a pathway, which was a royal pain in the ass. In medical school you don't need to know any structures, sure as hell don't need to know mechanisms, and only need to know the clinically relevant enzymes.

It is harder in that (1) you will need to know how all the pathways work in concert in the body, (which at least for me was not stressed in UG), (2) all the clinical manifestations of defects in any given pathway.

 

[Roxas]

Hi med students, just curious how you'd compare the difficulty of your average med school biochemistry class to an intro biochemistry class at a top 5 undergrad. In terms of depth of coverage, exam difficulty or whatever else. I ask because I'm studying for a metabolism exam for said undergrad biochemistry class and it's kinda kicking my ass lol. Have a good one

Must we have gone to a top 5 undergrad to answer this question?

 

[moy505]

How you you compare the rest of your classes to undergrad? What is the main difference between studying in college vs in med school?

 

[GoPelicans]

Uh well I went to state school for UG and medical school biochem was significantly harder lol. I guess everyone above me went to much harder colleges.

 

[tiedyeddog]

Medical school biochem had a completely different focus, I think. Hard to compare....

 

[Low Flow]

Must we have gone to a top 5 undergrad to answer this question?

How could anyone who didn't attend a top 5 possibly understand the rigor of his biochemistry course? Did you know they had to read Lehninger's Biochem from front to back?!

 

[Ismet]

Moving to pre-allo

 

[alpinism]

Must we have gone to a top 5 undergrad to answer this question?

Yes.

Everyone knows that the true super secret biochem material is only available at top 5 schools.

Also its like 50x harder than at state schools.

 

[xffan624]

Yes.

Everyone knows that the true super secret biochem material is only available at top 5 schools.

Also its like 50x harder than at state schools.

I've heard there's three extra amino acids you only learn about at a top 5.

 

[Tintinnabula]

I harbor with fond hope the idea that my studies will be all the more interesting because they will be more directly applicable to my interests. I will be delighted to not give a rip about learning (again) plant pathways. Couldn't bring myself to care enough except to ace the test then, made effort to forget the details immediately. I no longer know how many photons are needed for a cycle and that's a portion of my brain I'm delighted to use for trimming my toenails or something.

Also, my biochem taught a certain amount of pharmacology which about half the class thought was cool but holy crap the dude loved him some brand names. I know there are plenty of UG school that do that but did anyone run into this? It wasn't "atorvastatin" it was Lipitor. It wasn't even "acetaminophen," it was Tylenol. Viagra was never "sildenafil." He would correct the book in class to be sure we knew the brand name and after play dumb if we used the generic. And always written with the applicable trademark/registered/benchmark symbol, too. On an exam he tried to take points off when some students didn't write the trademark or whichever symbol after the brand name of a vasopressor but when the entire class protested immediately he gave them back and didn't try that again.

 

[litotes]

In UG (at least for me, a biochemistry major) we had to learn all the structures and mechanisms of every reaction, plus all the enzymes in a pathway, which was a royal pain in the ass. In medical school you don't need to know any structures, sure as hell don't need to know mechanisms, and only need to know the clinically relevant enzymes.

Yeah this is what my undergrad class is like, so that's relieving.

Must we have gone to a top 5 undergrad to answer this question?

of course not, I just thought that might be a useful piece of information, sorry if I offended anyone. Obviously the content is no different but I feel like it's fairly reasonable to assume the competition will be tougher at a top 5 than your average undergrad, but maybe not.

Anyways, I wasn't trying to start a debate, so I appreciate the good-faith attempts to answer my question. Exam went fairly well, by the way, although we'll see how the rest of the class does (that curve tho).

 

[Funke]

Biochemistry in medical school is easier in some ways but harder in others. Overall I would say med school biochem is easier than UG biochem.

In UG (at least for me, a biochemistry major) we had to learn all the structures and mechanisms of every reaction, plus all the enzymes in a pathway, which was a royal pain in the ass. In medical school you don't need to know any structures, sure as hell don't need to know mechanisms, and only need to know the clinically relevant enzymes.

It is harder in that (1) you will need to know how all the pathways work in concert in the body, (which at least for me was not stressed in UG), (2) all the clinical manifestations of defects in any given pathway.

Is there a typical biochemistry textbook for med school or does it come from ppt?