Neuroanatomy to prepare for medical school?

[Timmy248]

I am a neuro minor and have the option of thing a neuroanatomy course. How much will this help me in medical school, if it will at all? Or should I look into taking something else I might enjoy a little more?

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[snowflakes]

Take something you enjoy more. Yes, it may help some depending on the curriculum, but undergrad is probably your last chance to take lots of courses unrelated to medicine.

 

[chizledfrmstone]

Nothing can prepare you for medical school.

Take neuroanatomy if you like it. It might help you put things into context or give you 3-4 days worth of material in med school.

 

[jqueb29]

Any undergraduate class will contain, at most, about 2-3% of the information you will be responsible for in the corresponding medical school course. If you think you will enjoy the class, by all means take it. But if you're only taking it to prepare for med school, don't take it.

 

[sliceofbread136]

Honestly neuroanatomy is one of the cooler things you learn imo. I say give it a go, be alittle taste of medical school

 

[Heisenberg 41]

Neuroanatomy was one of my all-time favorite classes. I would take it!

 

[TraumaLlamaMD]

Seconded - it might make you slightly more comfortable with that material when you see it the second time, but there's a lot you can forget in a year, and anatomy is only a small part of your neuro block anyway.

 

[Pasmal]

My undergrad's anatomy/neuroanatomy classes were taught by an anatomist/former med school adcom member who prepped us fairly well for M1 anatomy. For my school that was probably one of the better courses to take as far as getting familiar with med school material. What do you mean by "enjoy a little more"? If you mean you'd probably hate it and just struggle through because you think it's the right thing to do, then I agree with above: take something else.

 

[Goro]

I recommend it, but taking classes you enjoy is even better.

I am a neuro minor and have the option of thing a neuroanatomy course. How much will this help me in medical school, if it will at all? Or should I look into taking something else I might enjoy a little more?

 

[mmmcdowe]

Neuroanatomy is much more rote memory based than comprehension-based. It won't help much, just like memorizing the Kreb's cycle if you don't continuously apply those facts you will forget most. As others have said, you shouldn't pick classes just based on their future applicability. I assure you my science fiction studies didn't help me one iota in medical school, but I'd take it again in a heart beat.

 

[TraumaLlamaMD]

To add to before, you may never again have the chance to take as wide a variety of classes as you can in undergrad. If you have interests outside of science and medicine, or want to develop some, it could be a long time before you have the chance to learn something about art history, architecture, ancient Roman engineering, or whatever else you might find exciting. If it were me, I would (and did at the time) take something like that as a senior, knowing that I'd have the next 4 years in medical school to learn more about anatomy and neuroscience. That said, I was also a neuroscience major, and took plenty of neuro-related classes for the first few years of college. If you have science credits you need to fill anyway, neuroanatomy doesn't sound like a bad choice.

 

[Beargryllz]

Don't bother. You get neuroanatomy in medical school. Why take the same course twice?

 

[NickNaylor]

Personally I wish I had some kind of neuro exposure prior to medical school. I knew absolutely nothing about neuroscience apart from action potentials, and consequently I struggled through our neuroanatomy/neurobiology course. I would agree with the sentiment that taking this course is unlikely to help you all that much for med school, but if it's something that you're interested in taking and think you would enjoy it, it will make revisiting the material in med school slightly less stressful. At least you will have heard of all of the structures even if you don't remember much.

 

[Petrichor1]

Nothing can prepare you for medical school.

Take neuroanatomy if you like it. It might help you put things into context or give you 3-4 days worth of material in med school.

Med school pumps things so fast at you that in the beginning you feel you got this but later on you may be lost if overconfident. Got the chance to take a similar version class and boy it really helped to know the material to understand it but without organization, you won't magically end up with HP.

 

[Timmy248]

Thank you all for y'alls help. I think I will lean towards taking something else

 

[deleted357625]

Medical programs are fast paced/lots of info. Nothing will "prepare" you. Seriously, just takes classes you enjoy and get good grades. Don't take hard classes you don't need and not do well in them, then you just did yourself a disfavor. I wish I majored in econ/finance + pre-reqs of any kind TBH it would have been more relevant to life in general

 

[NeuResurgens]

Do what you like, not what you think medical schools will want. You're more likely to get a good grade and enjoy your life more if you find the material interesting vs. if you're just trying to get prepped for med school.