Memorizing nerve roots

Burrell College of Osteopathic Medicine
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W19 said:
Professional school is professional school; however, some put emphasis on different things. I know pretty damn well pharm school curriculum since my best friend is a P4. They DO NOT put that much emphasis in Anatomy like med school does. I don't know much about dental school though.
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What part of "we take the same first and second year classes as the med students and take the same exams as them" isn't computing with you?
 
As long as you know what each muscle in the upper extremities is innervated by, you can figure out the ramii.
 
fancymylotus said:
You need to go to the fish antibiotic thread and answer my very serious question I posted
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I've avoided that thread on purpose bc I put it on par with the eating poop hot dog thread.
 
DermViser said:
They take the same exams, genius.
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Not at my school. I've seen their exams and its like if you wrote word for word rote memorization questions from the notes. Like UW 95% correct questions
 
It's not bad when you do it section by section. The brachial plexus is tough and we had a low practical average for that exam. If you can draw it out in a basic sketch and if you get the Randy Travis...cold beer thing down, ask you have to do is use MARMU to figure out what is at play. Know the Ross for MARMU, and you'll pass for sure
 
fancymylotus said:
What part of "we take the same first and second year classes as the med students and take the same exams as them" isn't computing with you?
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As if PhD professors are going to write 2 separate exams.
 
PL198 said:
Not at my school. I've seen their exams and its like if you wrote word for word rote memorization questions from the notes. Like UW 95% correct questions
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So your dental students and medical students take basic science classes together?
 
fancymylotus said:
Sigh. Some schools have their own classes, some don't.
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THIS. It's different if dental students and med students take courses separately. If they take them together, they get the same exams.
 
Anicetus said:
As long as you know what each muscle in the upper extremities is innervated by, you can figure out the ramii.
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I just tried the tracing thing and I don't see how it helps.

I can backtrace the median nerve to C5-T1, but flexor carpi radialis is only innervated by C6,7.
 
DermViser said:
Instead of doing it muscle to nerve root. Why not do it nerve to nerve root?
http://www.utswanesthesia.com/regional/?page_id=64
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The thing is, they'll ask you like, "What spinal nerve roots serve the flexor carpi radialus?" Well, the FCR is innervated by the median nerve, which has roots at C5-T1, but the FCR only gets C6 and C7. So you mess up and say C7, C8, you get no credit, thank you sir, have a nice day. Knowing what roots each major terminal branch of the brachial plexus is composed of doesn't do you a whole hell of a lot of good with the median and radial nerves, since different muscles receive innervation from different segments of those branches. Memorizing which muscles get what is a tedious pain in the ass.
 
fancymylotus said:
It's coz we aren't real doctors and it's basically a crime that anyone even CALLS us doctor. Like omg
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I call my dentist Dr. I have a problem calling nurse practitioners doctor.
 
Mad Jack said:
The thing is, they'll ask you like, "What spinal nerve roots serve the flexor carpi radialus?" Well, the FCR is innervated by the median nerve, which has roots at C5-T1, but the FCR only gets C6 and C7. So you mess up and say C7, C8, you get no credit, thank you sir, have a nice day. Knowing what roots each major terminal branch of the brachial plexus is composed of doesn't do you a whole hell of a lot of good with the median and radial nerves, since different muscles receive innervation from different segments of those branches. Memorizing which muscles get what is a tedious pain in the ass.
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Yeah, that's exactly what I'm saying. God damn I hate this class.
 
DermViser said:
So your dental students and medical students take basic science classes together?
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No. I was referring to pharmacy, like the original post. I know essentially nothing about dental school.

However I would think it's pretty stupid if dental basic sciences isn't different than medical schools. It's probably not wise for them to learn **** tons about the vasculature of the foot, and it's probably more wise for them to know more about thr basic sciences relating to the head than me. Not saying that's watered down, but it would seem conceptually foolish if they were the same. I don't really know why a dentist would need to know the same amount of basic sciences a md does.
 
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PL198 said:
No. I was referring to pharmacy, like the original post. I know essentially nothing about dental school.

However I would think it's pretty stupid if dental basic sciences isn't different than medical schools. It's probably not wise for them to learn **** tons about the vasculature of the foot, and it's probably more wise for them to know more about thr basic sciences relating to the head than me. Not saying that's watered down, but it would seem conceptually foolish if they were the same. I don't really know why a dentist would need to know the same amount of basic sciences a md does.
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Is the mouth isolated from the rest of the body? Mouth flora can seed and cause bacterial endocarditis.
 
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PL198 said:
No. I was referring to pharmacy, like the original post. I know essentially nothing about dental school.

However I would think it's pretty stupid if dental basic sciences isn't different than medical schools. It's probably not wise for them to learn **** tons about the vasculature of the foot, and it's probably more wise for them to know more about thr basic sciences relating to the head than me. Not saying that's watered down, but it would seem conceptually foolish if they were the same. I don't really know why a dentist would need to know the same amount of basic sciences a md does.
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I got nothin. I'll let dermie handle this one
 
fancymylotus said:
Oh right! Silly me. I forgot. In fact when I work, I actually disconnect the mouth from the body, hold it in my hand, do what I need to do, and then plug it back in. I like to call this the "Lefort 0"
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😆😆😆
Yup. Disconnect it, flip the top half back and do what you need to do, and then plug it back in. No need to have the person open their mouth wide.
 
notbobtrustme said:
no it's not, I had at least 3-4 questions on Step 1 that came directly from knowing nerve roots.
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If you know the dermatomes and the clinical scenarios of claw hand, foot drop, etc. you should be good. You don't need to go memorizing that this nerve root is c5, c6 for every muscle

DermViser said:
Amazes me that med students think that somehow dental student's basic sciences is watered down somehow.
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The dental students had a similar course of study as us but didn't go as much in depth in some topics as we did from my impression. In anatomy, they didn't do the pelvis or the legs although they did all of the abdominal organs and the upper extremities. The anatomy tests were largely the same but they got more teeth, head and neck questions as opposed to the pelvis/leg questions that we got.
 
Psai said:
The dental students had a similar course of study as us but didn't go as much in depth in some topics as we did from my impression. In anatomy, they didn't do the pelvis or the legs although they did all of the abdominal organs and the upper extremities. The anatomy tests were largely the same but they got more teeth, head and neck questions as opposed to the pelvis/leg questions that we got.
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Their pathology is also more concentrated on oral pathology also. Probably same for Micro. Biochem, Cell Bio, etc. is the same for them.
 
you know what the worst part of my job is? the nonstop upper back and neck pain. I usually work KT'ed up, or it hurts too much and I have to keep taking breaks
 
fancymylotus said:
you know what the worst part of my job is? the nonstop upper back and neck pain. I usually work KT'ed up, or it hurts too much and I have to keep taking breaks
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You mean having to bend down to do procedural work in someone's mouth?
 
DermViser said:
The mouth is fully isolated from the rest of the body you know.
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I never said it was, not to mention endocarditis wouldn't be treated by a dentist. I'm not knocking dentists at all. In fact I think they're smarter than MD DO in many ways, especially financially, where it's not even close, 100:1 they are superior. Yet I'm also not immune to the fact that there have probably been 0 cases where a dentist understanding what the talofibular ligament is, was somehow helpful to the issue at hand. That's not a knock, just saying it isn't going to help them. Therefore it would be foolish for them to waste their time learning it.

I don't get the hard lines approach everyone takes up in these matters. Are there things away from the mouth that learning that would help a dentist and their ability to treat? Absolutely. Would all things far away from the mouth that med students are required to learn help dentists and their ability to treat? Absolutely not. It's not a knock.
 
DermViser said:
Their pathology is also more concentrated on oral pathology also. Probably same for Micro. Biochem, Cell Bio, etc. is the same for them.
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I don't understand you, you're literally saying exactly the same thing I'm saying, yet somehow saying I'm wrong.
 
I was a big fan of drawing out the brachial plexus and there was a different little quick-draw mnemonic thing for the lumbosacral plexus that I can't remember now but I definitely used for the exam.

I found the most boards and clinically relevant aspect of nerve roots to be knowing the dermatomes. These also help with knowing the specific nerve roots for any given muscle, like in the FCR example above. If you visually know where the muscle is and where the dermatomes are, it's pretty much a no-brainer to see it's probably c6-7. I'm sure there's an exception or two and you have to use a little common sense, but I think drawing out the plexus and then quickly drawing a sketch of the relevant dermatomes should allow you to get >90% of the nerve root questions right with minimal effort.
 
fancymylotus said:
Memorizing for anatomy sucked, I used to draw this stuff out from the book once, tape it to my wall and stare at it for awhile, and then redraw it a zillion times till I memorized it. Regurgitate on exam -> forgotten.

**** anatomy
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I understand the application of anatomy in dental school, although I don't think they need to memorize everything, (IMO they should really focus on head and neck/ torso- the rest shouldn't really matter) but most of it you guys can forget I'm assuming, with the exception of head and neck, while doctors still, depending on specialty (not including psych), have to remember most of it. Even an opthalmologist, for instance will probably retain a significant amount of that information.
 
Easy mnemonic for brachial plexus. Your fingers are the roots, thumb=C5, pinky=T1. Hold up the fingers as you recite this..

Three musketeers (thumb, index, and middle= musculoskeletal) assassinated (make a gun with thumb and index= axillary) 5 mice (all fingers for median), 5 rats (all fingers for radial) and 2 unicorns (ring and pinky = ulnar).

Fingers correspond to roots for those 5 main ones. The minor nerves coming off I just kept drawing the plexus and memorized the roots.
 
circulus vitios said:
Yeah.

It is when any non-******ed clinician would just look it up rather than try to rely on their memory. But I want to pass this godawful class, so I have to play their game.
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Not to be patronizing, but this is your life for the next ~7 years. I suggest finding a healthy way to cope.
 
Smokemont said:
Not to be patronizing, but this is your life for the next ~7 years. I suggest finding a healthy way to cope.
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Pretty sure I'm not going to be memorizing nerves and muscles for the next 7 years but I'm no wizened MS3 or whatever you are.
 
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