Microscope

[TrojanDoctor]

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Hello!

I'm a first year at University of Kansas SOM and was wondering how much microscope tissue/organ identification from H and E slides is stressed at other schools. I suck at it and am curious if this is an important skill for step one or even in practice. We just had a test in our cell bio/histo class worth 40% of our semester grade where all we do is look at H and E slides for a few hours and write what it is we are looking at. The class is a histology class so I guess its pretty necessary for the class...

I mean, even in pathology, don't people usually tell you what you are looking at? Am I destined to be a bad doctor because vagina looks like skin to me?

Well, I am hoping that struggling this year with my microscope will at least be useful in path next year...or is this just wishful thinking?

just curious what goes on at other schools and what other people think!

thanks

 

[RustNeverSleeps]

Hello!

I'm a first year at University of Kansas SOM and was wondering how much microscope tissue/organ identification from H and E slides is stressed at other schools. I suck at it and am curious if this is an important skill for step one or even in practice. We just had a test in our cell bio/histo class worth 40% of our semester grade where all we do is look at H and E slides for a few hours and write what it is we are looking at. The class is a histology class so I guess its pretty necessary for the class...

I mean, even in pathology, don't people usually tell you what you are looking at? Am I destined to be a bad doctor because vagina looks like skin to me?

Well, I am hoping that struggling this year with my microscope will at least be useful in path next year...or is this just wishful thinking?

just curious what goes on at other schools and what other people think!

thanks

I hate to burst your bubble, but I doubt that people will just tell you what you are looking at in path. At my school, we spent a lot of time looking at slides in histology and would then have exams in which we would have to identify unknowns. There is definitely a lot of microscope work in path as well. I don't know about other schools, but we had several exams in which we had to identify unknown slides -- the tissue, the disease process, and possibly more detailed information depending on the question. So unfortunately, you will have to use the microscope a lot for your pre-clinical work. You can make your life a lot easier by getting your histology down cold.

 

[klubguts]

In my path course, we spent quite a bit of time identifying things on slides under the microscope...if it makes you feel better, i really suck at it too and managed to get by (i made it to 4th yr). We also had unknown practical exams. In the real world, i think it is rare for a pathologist to view a slide and not know the tissue of origin beforehand (but, this is med school). Step 1 does have some slide photos, but from what i remember they were associated with a case so it wasn't too bad. i would also encourage you to try and learn histology the best you can, because your weaknesses may be exposed in path and you will have to spend a bunch of time "re-learning" that stuff. Best of luck.