Need help, failed anatomy exam

[needhelp]

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Hi everyone,
I really need help. I am a non-science major who started medical school and I ended up failing the first anatomy test, and I am feeling really bad and depressed about it. I would really appreciate any of your help to see how can I do well on anatomy, as I need to be able to do extremely well on my next exams to be able to pass anatomy. Thank you!

 

[t33sg1rl]

Hi everyone,
I really need help. I am a non-science major who started medical school and I ended up failing the first anatomy test, and I am feeling really bad and depressed about it. I would really appreciate any of your help to see how can I do well on anatomy, as I need to be able to do extremely well on my next exams to be able to pass anatomy. Thank you!

First off, do NOT feel like you're dumb or can't learn this. Anatomy is particularly hard for non-science majors and nontrads who've been out of school. I personally failed my first and third anatomy exams (passed the second and fourth by a hair, ending up 0.3% above the passing line) but my first year final mark was just below the class average (would have been above if not for stupid Anatomy).

Here's what you need to do:
1. Go talk to your course director NOW.
2. Tell your dissection group that you're having trouble and you really need help. Have them quiz you as much as possible. You can't really quiz yourself on the body, because how will you know if you're right or not? They will probably be glad to teach you if they know you need extra help, because they know that they can really best solidify their own knowledge by teaching it to someone else.
3. Go talk to your learning/counseling person. Every med school has one or more of these folks, and their job is to help you learn to learn this type of material. They have PhDs in this, which nobody lurking on SDN does. Get your appointment asap.

Suggestion #2 is going to boost your grade the most. Suggestion #1 and #3 will buy you sympathy from the school in case you do fail. Med school teachers have a lot of leeway in many cases-you can fail and with a mark of the pen they can change you to passing, IF they believe you deserve it in spite of your scores.

finally, hang in there. It CAN be done. Even if you repeat Anatomy, you can still be a doctor. Third year will be on you before you know it, and your non-science background will finally start to be a help, not a hindrance.

 

[Onstarr]

Not being an ass. but just being realistic:

Assess WHY you have failed.

did you not study hard enough?
did you not put in the time?
do you make sacrifices?

what is your study habit like?

just telling us you are a non-science major doesnt tell us much.

you can do it. try couple of methods..
i am a non science major myself..

during the week before the exam:
i am at the school 8am-5pm for classes, 5-6 at the gym doing flash cards for anatomy, 6-7 shower/dinner.. 8pm-1am at the library almost every day.. and that is the case with many students here at UNECOM.. they all do fairly well with this method. (and there are those who seem to do the bare minimum and they high pass the exams.. damn those w/ photographic memory)

once again: look back on WHY you have failed.. and why others have passed. perhaps there are some tricks that you are not aware of. definitely talk to your classmates, professors, second year students, etc.

good luck. i am sure you will step up BIG time for the next exam

 

[njbmd]

First off, do NOT feel like you're dumb or can't learn this. Anatomy is particularly hard for non-science majors and nontrads who've been out of school. I personally failed my first and third anatomy exams (passed the second and fourth by a hair, ending up 0.3% above the passing line) but my first year final mark was just below the class average (would have been above if not for stupid Anatomy).

Here's what you need to do:
1. Go talk to your course director NOW.
2. Tell your dissection group that you're having trouble and you really need help. Have them quiz you as much as possible. You can't really quiz yourself on the body, because how will you know if you're right or not? They will probably be glad to teach you if they know you need extra help, because they know that they can really best solidify their own knowledge by teaching it to someone else.
3. Go talk to your learning/counseling person. Every med school has one or more of these folks, and their job is to help you learn to learn this type of material. They have PhDs in this, which nobody lurking on SDN does. Get your appointment asap.

Suggestion #2 is going to boost your grade the most. Suggestion #1 and #3 will buy you sympathy from the school in case you do fail. Med school teachers have a lot of leeway in many cases-you can fail and with a mark of the pen they can change you to passing, IF they believe you deserve it in spite of your scores.

finally, hang in there. It CAN be done. Even if you repeat Anatomy, you can still be a doctor. Third year will be on you before you know it, and your non-science background will finally start to be a help, not a hindrance.

This is excellent advice. If you need help, ask for it and most likely, your class/tank mates will be happy to oblige as it helps them study when they help you.

I also have an essay on any of my blogs, listed in my signature, that outlines how I prepared for Gross Anatomy. Check it out and see if anything there is helpful for you. I can tell you that 75% of my class failed the first Gross Anatomy exam but on a couple of people failed the class.

Don't despair because you don't have to be a science major to do well in Gross Anatomy or any other medical school class. You have to be an efficient student (note that I didn't say "good student"). Success is all about asking for help when you need it and making the necessary adjustments. If you got into medical school, you have all of the tools that you need to do well no matter what your pre-med major was. Good luck!

For t33sg1rl: I DO have a Ph.D in addition to my M.D.

 

[Miami_med]

I was also a non-science major.

Anatomy has nothing to do with your major. Being good at anatomy is really about being good at memorizing. Having a science background is pretty useless unless it was in anatomy. If you are bad at memorizing (as I am), maximize efficiency. Start big and work in small. Obscure names come last. I also recommend drawing out all of the arteries in the abdomen about a dozen times. This will help more than you think. Also, most people study better with a quick look at the bodies followed by a lot of outside studying. I was the opposite, and if you are also that way, put in time in the lab. A final suggestion would be to hook up with someone who is good at the subject. I did this, and he happily quizzed me for about 4 hours a night as we went through all of the dissections on a number of different bodies. I passed, and he solidified his 98%🙄 I was at school for about 16 hours/ 3 days a week, with 10-12 hour days in between during anatomy. It sucked, but I passed.

 

[baylormed]

Not being an ass. but just being realistic:

Assess WHY you have failed.

did you not study hard enough?
did you not put in the time?
do you make sacrifices?

what is your study habit like?

just telling us you are a non-science major doesnt tell us much.

you can do it. try couple of methods..
i am a non science major myself..

during the week before the exam:
i am at the school 8am-5pm for classes, 5-6 at the gym doing flash cards for anatomy, 6-7 shower/dinner.. 8pm-1am at the library almost every day.. and that is the case with many students here at UNECOM.. they all do fairly well with this method. (and there are those who seem to do the bare minimum and they high pass the exams.. damn those w/ photographic memory)

once again: look back on WHY you have failed.. and why others have passed. perhaps there are some tricks that you are not aware of. definitely talk to your classmates, professors, second year students, etc.

good luck. i am sure you will step up BIG time for the next exam

8am to 1am every day?

Wow, that is hard. I doubt I would be able to keep that up for more than a couple of days, although everyone is different. I need my 8 hours of sleep a night if I want to retain information better.

 

[45408]

8am to 1am every day?

Wow, that is hard. I doubt I would be able to keep that up for more than a couple of days, although everyone is different. I need my 8 hours of sleep a night if I want to retain information better.

Exam weeks can get pretty wild.

 

[baylormed]

Exam weeks can get pretty wild.

I know, I've already had one. Studying that much under time pressure is normal, I can do that. However, to do that every single day for the whole school year, I could never keep it up. Not even for a week, I'd get burned out.

 

[Onstarr]

8am to 1am every day?

Wow, that is hard. I doubt I would be able to keep that up for more than a couple of days, although everyone is different. I need my 8 hours of sleep a night if I want to retain information better.

yup thats only during exam week... dont get me wrong 7-8hrs would be heaven right now.

 

[baylormed]

yup thats only during exam week... dont get me wrong 7-8hrs would be heaven right now.

That makes two of us, then. I have my second biochem exam on Thursday. Sleep just got pushed down very low in my list of priorities.

 

[Law2Doc]

I was also a non-science major.

Anatomy has nothing to do with your major. Being good at anatomy is really about being good at memorizing.

Agree with this. Most non-sci majors do fine in anatomy, and there isn't usually a hierarchy of grades based on major. The people who figure out how to study anatomy effectively do well in anatomy. Nothing you have done before makes as much of a difference.

 

[anon-y-mouse]

What part of the test did you fail? Written? Practical? Are they separated for you? I bombed one of my practicals because I got sick of going into lab after a while... so I didn't learn what a psoas major or obturator artery looked like on a cadaver, even though I knew what they did (guess I couldn't integrate that information). After some soul searching, I figured out I was sick of lab because the smell made me want to puke and die... so I had to retrain myself psychologically and hauled ass for subsequent exams.

You should do more practice questions, since they will all be medically oriented, integrating the information you've learned... BRS anatomy, UMich anatomy quizzes, etc.

 

[Instatewaiter]

First off, do NOT feel like you're dumb or can't learn this. Anatomy is particularly hard for non-science majors and nontrads who've been out of school. I personally failed my first and third anatomy exams (passed the second and fourth by a hair, ending up 0.3% above the passing line) but my first year final mark was just below the class average (would have been above if not for stupid Anatomy).

Here's what you need to do:
1. Go talk to your course director NOW.
2. Tell your dissection group that you're having trouble and you really need help. Have them quiz you as much as possible. You can't really quiz yourself on the body, because how will you know if you're right or not? They will probably be glad to teach you if they know you need extra help, because they know that they can really best solidify their own knowledge by teaching it to someone else.
3. Go talk to your learning/counseling person. Every med school has one or more of these folks, and their job is to help you learn to learn this type of material. They have PhDs in this, which nobody lurking on SDN does. Get your appointment asap.

Suggestion #2 is going to boost your grade the most. Suggestion #1 and #3 will buy you sympathy from the school in case you do fail. Med school teachers have a lot of leeway in many cases-you can fail and with a mark of the pen they can change you to passing, IF they believe you deserve it in spite of your scores.

finally, hang in there. It CAN be done. Even if you repeat Anatomy, you can still be a doctor. Third year will be on you before you know it, and your non-science background will finally start to be a help, not a hindrance.

This is phenomenal advice.

For me anatomy was the hardest course in med school thus far. Something about memorizing obscure names w/o any real context was very difficult for me.

Things that helped me:
Netter flash cards (or grants or whatever)- personally I liked netter's best and the flash cards were a godsend. I couldnt look at a body and learn unless I had some context to compare to. So I would study netters before the lab and that worked great. Unlike most classes, I needed to be 1 day ahead. Other classes I did great being a few days behind.

Rohen's atlas- for practical exams it is nice to have a photographic atlas. This is the one that was picked by my class so I followed suit. I think thiene makes one and I am sure there are others.

Personally I think there are 2 types of people for anatomy:
1) Those that learn best by studying the body and then reviewing w/ an atlas
2) Those that must learn the atlas before they go to the body (me)
Figure out which one you are fast and do that.

For practicals I felt like looking at 3-5 bodies was plenty. The professors will pick good examples of structures so more than that is not necessary.

Good luck, anatomy is hard but doable.

 

[PeepshowJohnny]

I want to make one additional suggestion to add to the already great other ones.

Look at the type of questions that were asked on the exam, and use that to guide your further studying.

Some teachers favor the "Origin, Insertion, Innervation, Function" model so much that you're just going to me memorizing long charts of them to do well.

Some favor the "exceptions prove the rule" approach. They LOVE to ask questions about muscles that have double innervations, muscles from groups that break the rules, and little tricks that you can get if you read some of the board review style books.

And some favor a "clinical" approach to anatomy. There are some great books out there that correlate anatomy to clinical conditions.

 

[tawanda]

I'm an ms4, been out of anatomy for awhile, but here is my advice:

starting med school is tough. there's this huge shift from studying maybe a couple of hours a day in undergrad to studying all the time. But you get used to it, and you will also get more efficient. For anatomy, things start to become easier...for example, we started with the upper extremity anatomy. By the time we got to the lower extremity, I had already learned the patterns and what to know from the upper extremity so it was much easier to learn. I barely passed the first test in anatomy and ended up getting a 90 on the last one.

Try to figure out what is working for you and what isn't. For me, flashcards were a huge help. I basically converted all of our notes and/or reading into flashcards and learned very well this way. But there are lots of other tools out there...audio lectures, reading and highlighting, taking notes from the reading, making charts and tables, etc. Go to class, and pay attention in class! So many people didn't go or would surf the internet during lecture. You might not think you're getting much out of lecture, but if you are making an effort to pay attention, you are.

Also, once you get into the swing of things, make sure you take some time for yourself. I was not the type to get up early to study or study late each night. Some people would be up at 6 am and stay at the library till 1 am. This is crazy. You learn better with sleep. I would put in full days of studying but I always tried to get some sleep and take some days off, and I did very well.

Just stick with it, and it will get (a little) easier!

 

[pratik7]

I used BRS anatomy when i took the course and thought it was really good. It was pretty short and was very clinically relevant