******* NYCOM Class of 2011 Part 2 ******

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What about that clinical neuroanatomy book by blumenfeld? What do you guys suggest I read in there?


Mmm was that required reading? What I used was Barrs, I think I read every chapter especially after Friedman. I liked High Yeild Neuro alot more than BRS b/c its quicker and I wasn't using it as my primary source of info, but some lecture slides come straightout of BRS. Lastly Neuro Made Rid. Simple, it was interesting and quick to read.

Most of the lab questions come straightout of Hallas pics but it doesn't hurt to look at Haines, also I used Temples Neuroanatomy site which is amazing and it helps with embyro and clinical info. Then lastly Webpath is always good to check out and test urself.

Who is giving ur pathology lectures this yr? Cohen?
 
So far it has been mostly plummer. She is good because she basically tells you 90% of her test questions/topics. We have cohen lectures starting next week after the first test. That clinical neuro book isn't required but many 2nd years recommended it i guess for the clinical cases.
 
maybe it's just my learning style, but if you read that book in its entirety I don't think you'll forget anything. I recommend reading the chapters and reading through all the clinical cases. Don't worry about taking notes, just read and do the cases and you will somehow absorb everything. That's my 2 cents on that.

As for the neuro labs, I never went up to see the specimens and I think I got 1 question wrong from the neuro labs from both exams we did. I used the notes that Hallas gave out and that was it for studying. But like I said, if you read the neuroanatomy blumenfeld book in its entirety, you'll memorize the hallas stuff quickly. Personally, it took me about 4 hours to memorize it all, but I read much of the blumenfeld book first.
 
By reading the blumenfeld book you also mean stop looking at lecture slides?
 
I mean, it depends. I totally ignored Friedman's slides since I think she's inept and she gave us wrong information half the time. Look at Torres' slides. Go by lecturer. I'm telling you though, if you read the Blumenfeld book, you can skim through the powerpoints because you'll understand them (except Friedman...she's an idiot and I'm not sure how they let her teach here.)

As an aside on Friedman...stream her lecture from last year where she talks about Parkinson's disease. She literally spends about 25-30 minutes debating with herself the pathophysiology of Parkinson's. She couldn't figure out what was right or wrong. Absolutely terrible.
 
O and if you mean Hallas' slides...know those cold. Reading Blumenfeld will make those a lot easier to memorize though...trust me. It helps to understand things clinically in my opinion.
 
I mean, it depends. I totally ignored Friedman's slides since I think she's inept and she gave us wrong information half the time. Look at Torres' slides. Go by lecturer. I'm telling you though, if you read the Blumenfeld book, you can skim through the powerpoints because you'll understand them (except Friedman...she's an idiot and I'm not sure how they let her teach here.)

As an aside on Friedman...stream her lecture from last year where she talks about Parkinson's disease. She literally spends about 25-30 minutes debating with herself the pathophysiology of Parkinson's. She couldn't figure out what was right or wrong. Absolutely terrible.

Thanks gobiggreen. I just ordered blumenfeld neuro book. Can't wait to get my hands on it.
 
Don't think you can read that book in a day lol.
 
i dont think you can read it in a month
 
Believe me our neuro system is quicker than you think. Anyway, is there anything in particular rabin mentioned to look at in his lecture? That's the one lecture I am not gonna stream.
 
I mean, it depends. I totally ignored Friedman's slides since I think she's inept and she gave us wrong information half the time. Look at Torres' slides. Go by lecturer. I'm telling you though, if you read the Blumenfeld book, you can skim through the powerpoints because you'll understand them (except Friedman...she's an idiot and I'm not sure how they let her teach here.)

As an aside on Friedman...stream her lecture from last year where she talks about Parkinson's disease. She literally spends about 25-30 minutes debating with herself the pathophysiology of Parkinson's. She couldn't figure out what was right or wrong. Absolutely terrible.

Agreed. Use other sources for her material, half the time she was up there she was spouting out wrong information for us. Unless she's changed over the last year, be weary of what she tells you. I can't believe she's still "teaching" after last year.
 
I mean, it depends. I totally ignored Friedman's slides since I think she's inept and she gave us wrong information half the time. Look at Torres' slides. Go by lecturer. I'm telling you though, if you read the Blumenfeld book, you can skim through the powerpoints because you'll understand them (except Friedman...she's an idiot and I'm not sure how they let her teach here.)

As an aside on Friedman...stream her lecture from last year where she talks about Parkinson's disease. She literally spends about 25-30 minutes debating with herself the pathophysiology of Parkinson's. She couldn't figure out what was right or wrong. Absolutely terrible.

This was the striatal motor system. I think she had probs during lecture, the following class and also during the review with this system. Maybe she should stop saying "quiet" for pathways that are inhibited and just say it is "inhibited"? If you look at this pathway for 15 minutes and understand what will give you huntington's, parkinson's, know glutamate vs GABA etc you should pretty much understand it and then review it to memorize it.

It's a tricky system because you can inhibit a pathway that gives off an inhibtor. then you have to see what happens downstream.

glutamate is an excitatory neurotransmitter and glycine/GABA are inhibitory. Guaranteed 1 point on the exam. 😀
 
Ya of course we haven't had any friedman yet.. But i know not to attend now 🙂
 
when friedman lectures, check who gave that same lecture a few years back the movie archive.
 
This was the striatal motor system. I think she had probs during lecture, the following class and also during the review with this system. Maybe she should stop saying "quiet" for pathways that are inhibited and just say it is "inhibited"? If you look at this pathway for 15 minutes and understand what will give you huntington's, parkinson's, know glutamate vs GABA etc you should pretty much understand it and then review it to memorize it.

It's a tricky system because you can inhibit a pathway that gives off an inhibtor. then you have to see what happens downstream.

glutamate is an excitatory neurotransmitter and glycine/GABA are inhibitory. Guaranteed 1 point on the exam. 😀


I know lots of people don't like Barr, but I used Barr to learn everything that Freidman sucked at teaching, and it helped me a lot. Especially this infamous pathway!
 
i'm so ready for this exam to be over
 
after what I wrote for Friedman's evaluation, I'm surprised she's still teaching. It makes me feel that my evaluation isn't listened to since I basically called for her immediate firing from the school.

My favorite was when she came to lecture us in histology for the integumentary system and she starts off her lecture by saying

"well, this isn't my area of expertise but I should be able to do this"

If her expertise is neuroscience and she knows NOTHING...how can they expect her to teach histology of the integumentary system.
 
Does anyone know if our next neuro exam is cummulative?
 
I really hate this course.

Now Friedman is terrible. Nice lady, means well, but keeps spouting off how easy this stuff is, an how she wont give us "easy" questions. She said we are trying to "upgrade the school" by giving harder tests, and That the next test will be "harder".

She gives the most disorganized lectures, impossible to really follow, nothing in the right order. In fact i try and follow the same lectures in the book but she leaves out some info, and adds in her own. Im tired and frustrated. I have alot riding on this next test and German "micky mouse question" Torres, and hr have a bulk of the lectures. Forget about the fact that she steals the lectures from the previous years, so she makes some semblance of sense. She also has said " I give the lectures off the top o' my head". wonderful.

I wont even complain about the conditions of the previous course in that dark small desked dank classroom.

It sucks to see so many students already gone, or scared s-less that they will be. Count me in.

I know many of you work hard and find this shnit easy, and really Im happy for you. I dont think its the hardest stuff in the world, but that doesntmake me a better test taker.

The course is not organized, and its hard to boot. If the school is wants to raise its standards, cant it give us some good teachers?

when the profs tell us that the barr book "sucks" what am i supposed to do?

The BRS is too brief for friedman etc etc etc.

I hope Im here with ya'll next year. I need some sleep.

oh, and thanks for the two points back Dr. Hallas.

I think he should teach every single class.

Instead of fellows doing the bulk of the teaching. The sad part is although they ask harder questions, they organize their slides and tell you straight up what you need to know.

whatever Im just friggin frustrated.

Peace out.

Thanks for letting me vent. Happy holidays.
 
I really hate this course.

Now Friedman is terrible. Nice lady, means well, but keeps spouting off how easy this stuff is, an how she wont give us "easy" questions. She said we are trying to "upgrade the school" by giving harder tests, and That the next test will be "harder".

She gives the most disorganized lectures, impossible to really follow, nothing in the right order. In fact i try and follow the same lectures in the book but she leaves out some info, and adds in her own. Im tired and frustrated. I have alot riding on this next test and German "micky mouse question" Torres, and hr have a bulk of the lectures. Forget about the fact that she steals the lectures from the previous years, so she makes some semblance of sense. She also has said " I give the lectures off the top o' my head". wonderful.

I wont even complain about the conditions of the previous course in that dark small desked dank classroom.

It sucks to see so many students already gone, or scared s-less that they will be. Count me in.

I know many of you work hard and find this shnit easy, and really Im happy for you. I dont think its the hardest stuff in the world, but that doesntmake me a better test taker.

The course is not organized, and its hard to boot. If the school is wants to raise its standards, cant it give us some good teachers?

when the profs tell us that the barr book "sucks" what am i supposed to do?

The BRS is too brief for friedman etc etc etc.

I hope Im here with ya'll next year. I need some sleep.

oh, and thanks for the two points back Dr. Hallas.

I think he should teach every single class.

Instead of fellows doing the bulk of the teaching. The sad part is although they ask harder questions, they organize their slides and tell you straight up what you need to know.

whatever Im just friggin frustrated.

Peace out.

Thanks for letting me vent. Happy holidays.

hey woot!, I heard you man. It gets frustrating as the course is not any easier and they are not teaching very well. Especially, Dr. Friedman lectures are very disorganized.
What i did was I went to class of 2010 streamings. For example, Leheste taught vasculature of the brain last year and he was very comprehensible. So, it was a great help for me. You may want to stream last year movies for some sucky lectures. Last year, Friedman taught Cranial nerves. Seems like they take turn every year. We can get the best of both classes.

I also found myself going to wikipedia a lot. It helps me a lot with understanding the materials. Hope it helps.

I hope you do well on the next test.
Study hard, keep up the positive thoughts and have a nice holidays.
 
hey guys...2010er here.. if its any consolation, neuro is the worst in terms of instructors, its gets ALOT better...u just gotta hold on a get thru it...do whatever you have to, read texts, stream last years stuff...

it will improve...elkowitz is in charge of immuno and the bulk of the lectures are from simon...and integumentary is mostly hoffman, who's REALLY straightforward in lectures and on tests...and thus far, the 2nd year lecturers have really been good..

now if only we could do something about the completely UN-standardized OMM practical...
 
I really hate this course.

Now Friedman is terrible. Nice lady, means well, but keeps spouting off how easy this stuff is, an how she wont give us "easy" questions. She said we are trying to "upgrade the school" by giving harder tests, and That the next test will be "harder".

She gives the most disorganized lectures, impossible to really follow, nothing in the right order. In fact i try and follow the same lectures in the book but she leaves out some info, and adds in her own. Im tired and frustrated. I have alot riding on this next test and German "micky mouse question" Torres, and hr have a bulk of the lectures. Forget about the fact that she steals the lectures from the previous years, so she makes some semblance of sense. She also has said " I give the lectures off the top o' my head". wonderful.

I wont even complain about the conditions of the previous course in that dark small desked dank classroom.

It sucks to see so many students already gone, or scared s-less that they will be. Count me in.

I know many of you work hard and find this shnit easy, and really Im happy for you. I dont think its the hardest stuff in the world, but that doesntmake me a better test taker.

The course is not organized, and its hard to boot. If the school is wants to raise its standards, cant it give us some good teachers?

when the profs tell us that the barr book "sucks" what am i supposed to do?

The BRS is too brief for friedman etc etc etc.

I hope Im here with ya'll next year. I need some sleep.

oh, and thanks for the two points back Dr. Hallas.

I think he should teach every single class.

Instead of fellows doing the bulk of the teaching. The sad part is although they ask harder questions, they organize their slides and tell you straight up what you need to know.

whatever Im just friggin frustrated.

Peace out.

Thanks for letting me vent. Happy holidays.

You just said everything that has been going on in my head as well. Enjoy the next day or so, cuz the rest of this break (for me at least) is going to be filled with pain and brains 🙁
 
I agree Friedman sucks. Who cares what she says. Everyone gets scared, but in the end each test is doable. Don't worry to much, you will all be here next year. Neuro is probably the hardest course in general or at least during 1st year. I think after this test, neuro will get easier. As far as the cns blood lecture she gives, she practically tells you what she is gonna ask on the test. Well at least most of the questions from that lecture. You should be starring certain things after each lecture or when you restream it. As far as teh fellows go they basically tell you waht they are gonna test you on also. The material is always dense w/ the fellows but they usually give you most of the test questions also. Believe me I am no great test taker, but by now you should be able to estimate certain topics/questions from each lecture that will be on the test. That's what I do and and I study my notes and do fine. Pm me for some additional material, wink wink or any other help I can offer. Torres questions were mostly straight forward on the last test. I don't know why you worry about him.You have 2 weeks to chill and study for 4/5 of this next test. I know you will all do better on the next one.
 
I really hate this course.

Now Friedman is terrible. Nice lady, means well, but keeps spouting off how easy this stuff is, an how she wont give us "easy" questions. She said we are trying to "upgrade the school" by giving harder tests, and That the next test will be "harder".

She gives the most disorganized lectures, impossible to really follow, nothing in the right order. In fact i try and follow the same lectures in the book but she leaves out some info, and adds in her own. Im tired and frustrated. I have alot riding on this next test and German "micky mouse question" Torres, and hr have a bulk of the lectures. Forget about the fact that she steals the lectures from the previous years, so she makes some semblance of sense. She also has said " I give the lectures off the top o' my head". wonderful.

I wont even complain about the conditions of the previous course in that dark small desked dank classroom.

It sucks to see so many students already gone, or scared s-less that they will be. Count me in.

I know many of you work hard and find this shnit easy, and really Im happy for you. I dont think its the hardest stuff in the world, but that doesntmake me a better test taker.

The course is not organized, and its hard to boot. If the school is wants to raise its standards, cant it give us some good teachers?

when the profs tell us that the barr book "sucks" what am i supposed to do?

The BRS is too brief for friedman etc etc etc.

I hope Im here with ya'll next year. I need some sleep.

oh, and thanks for the two points back Dr. Hallas.

I think he should teach every single class.

Instead of fellows doing the bulk of the teaching. The sad part is although they ask harder questions, they organize their slides and tell you straight up what you need to know.

whatever Im just friggin frustrated.

Peace out.

Thanks for letting me vent. Happy holidays.

Your comments are identical to ours that we had last year when we took neuro, and our comments were identical to 2009's experience in neuro. Neuro is the block where you begin to question NYCOM. Why is this monstrosity of a course allowed to be run so poorly with no changes in it year to year? We all gave the course horrible reviews and they even called a special meeting at the end of it with administrators and students to talk about what was wrong and how to better it. Friendman is horrible, Torres is generally fare with his TQs but will throw in one that is completely out of the blue (ketamine anyone?). Are the fellows teaching unsupervised? For us, they were scheduled to give 2 hour lectures and most of them would be finished in 15-20 minutes! Dr. Hallas never showed up to a single lecture that we was supposed to give with them. I think that is part of the reason why he is no longer the department head for neurology or the course director. For problems with the fellows, email Dr Elkowitz. He is in charge of them. For neuro as a whole, email Drs. Bryant, Portanova, and whoever is in charge of the block. Maybe if you guys start complaining now they'll see that this course is going down the same path as years before??

Neuro I is the worst of first year and so far out of everything we've taken second year as well. Neuro 2 and 3 really aren't that bad- they were among our highest class averages last year. Immuno is a bitch, mostly because of the amount of info. Dr. Elkowitz runs it and he does a good job and you can tell he actually care about his students. This year with multiple exams it should be better for you than it was for us. Derm is practically a joke. Dr. Hoffman gives 50% of the lectures and during her last lecture she gives you a "review" that basically tells you exactly what's on the test.

My advice is to really work your ass of now (more than before if possible!) and use these two weeks we have "off" to really go over the material thats on your next neuro exam. Break it down so you're only doing 1-2 lectures a day and really learn that info well. Stream 2010's old lectures for things that were presented poorly for you, maybe they were done better for us? Once you tackle neuro you begin to feel like a real med student. I promise it will get better!
 
Thanks everyone for the kind words. I cant help being negative, as I do not know what I would do if they gave me the boot, but Im working hard and hopefully that will pay off.

I do alot of the suggestion already done, and I guess I just need to rethink some of my current ways.

Its just annoying that there are no makeups and there is no tolerance.

As for friedman, she basically took lehestes slides from last year and lectured from them in the most horrible way. No wonder she didnt seem familiar!
The scary part is that she will test from any detail there, while leheste focused on certain areas.

I know she has a ton of research money and she is very busy, but she really should not teach.

Ill let you all know how everything goes. Though half of you know who I am and how I was already kinda screwed.

Oh and speaking to Dr. Bryant does nothing, bcause she is a puppet for the deans, and will just double speak you until you just get confused and leave her office.

Dr. Portanova strikes me as a tough dude and Scandalas, who has been military and been a doctor for boxers is that way too. I totally fear them and their new policies.

I hope the student govt reads these posts, and trys to do something for us before its too late for some.

I do hope it gets better.

I do like the school and the students and alot of the faculty, but they dont see to have any say pr power in any decisions.
 
Yea...the only nice word I can say about neuro is it gets a lot easier after block 1 because for blocks 2 and 3 you have neuroanatomy (which you have no excuse to do poorly on) and increasing amounts of psychiatry. Honestly, most of the pschiatry questions you probably don't need to go to med school to answer correctly. They're that easy.

Just get by neuro block 1 and you'll be fine. The next 2 blocks won't be that bad. For heme/immun Simon gives about 40% of the lectures and does such a great job of teaching it that you should get 95% of his questions correct. It's not like he's easy, he's just that good of a teacher.

As someone said for hoffman...in her final lecture, she tells you all the questions she's going to ask on the exam and she has like 40% of the questions on that exam.

This year has been much better in terms of lecturers and exams for the most part. We still get the occasional poor lecturer, but they know their material. In my opinion the poorer lecturers have been MDs from good hospitals that know their stuff really well but are terrible lecturers. They don't give poor information they're just unorganized and lecture as if we know everything already. That's still miles ahead of friedman.

Honestly, that woman should be fired already. Her test questions I also found were the most difficult of all leturers and she often had wrong answers to her own questions and refused to change them even though people would show she was wrong using Harrison's. Absolutely terrible. neuro more than anything turns students on NYCOM.

Anyway...to us 2nd years...congratulations on being 75% done with the NYCOM part of NYCOM. in 6 months we'll be in the hospitals and for the most part we'll have forgotten about Drs. Bryant, Portanova, and Scandalis.
 
Yea...the only nice word I can say about neuro is it gets a lot easier after block 1 because for blocks 2 and 3 you have neuroanatomy (which you have no excuse to do poorly on) and increasing amounts of psychiatry. Honestly, most of the pschiatry questions you probably don't need to go to med school to answer correctly. They're that easy.

they must have changed something because we have neuroanatomy in block 1. our anatomy is a lot different than yours was, though. we only have 6 dissections left so we'll be done in early feb. with the cadavers.
 
Our anatomy rules! We will be done w/ it soon 🙂 Can you say only Omm every week hahahaha. I hope they don't give us 2x the omm each week after anatomy is done though.
 
that's nice you guys get to finish anatomy early but I wouldn't put it past them to double up your OMM now...

It is NYCOM after all...
 
that's nice you guys get to finish anatomy early but I wouldn't put it past them to double up your OMM now...

It is NYCOM after all...

I'll take double OMM over double anatomy any day (this year at least)... I can't WAIT til Feb!
 
i just streamed those friedman lectures, i dont see what everyone is complaining about. sure you could tell she's just reading off the slide, and sometimes she can't quite read period, but all the info is there if you look closely.
 
I'll take double OMM over double anatomy any day (this year at least)... I can't WAIT til Feb!

Suuuuure you'd love double OMM....you're A2 😛 us A1'ers got the shaft for OMM lab times :laugh:
 
Suuuuure you'd love double OMM....you're A2 😛 us A1'ers got the shaft for OMM lab times :laugh:

Don't worry, A2 gets shafted next year. A1B1 has Omm from 1-3 on Tuesdays and A2B2 has it from 3-5. It sucks how every other department at NYCOM (anatomy and DPR) rotates lab schedules, but Omm refuses to budge!

What's even worse is that in 2nd year you get Omm workshops (an hour long on the week you don't have Omm lab). A2b and B2b gets that from 4-5 while other groups have it from 1-2, 2-3, and 3-4.
 
Don't worry, A2 gets shafted next year. A1B1 has Omm from 1-3 on Tuesdays and A2B2 has it from 3-5. It sucks how every other department at NYCOM (anatomy and DPR) rotates lab schedules, but Omm refuses to budge!

What's even worse is that in 2nd year you get Omm workshops (an hour long on the week you don't have Omm lab). A2b and B2b gets that from 4-5 while other groups have it from 1-2, 2-3, and 3-4.


Nice!! thanks JasonUD...I have something to look forward to next year 😍
 
so I am not going to lie, this neuro stuff is very interesting. And its kind of wierd that I am kind of having fun doing it....did anyone else go through this rite of passage?

THE PROBLEM, however, is actually doing it. Although it's fun and interesting, I find that other things are just a little bit more fun and interesting (xbox, tv, gym, sports on tv, going out to eat) and so I am very behind.

I need motivation to start studying...any help? haha
 
Motivation is simple, do the work now so next weekend you won't have to cram and go crazy. If your really that lazy at least stream hte lab videos and look at the lab manual pdf a few times.
 
i dont think anyone has done much work... or at keast as much work as they wanted to so far... dont worry about it
 
happy new year everyone! :hardy:

back to life tomorrow...
 
does anyone know if Dr. Friedman posted her diagrams??

Also, is there a way to access class of 2009 neurolectures? I couldn't find them in AT still website nor noodle.
 
does anyone know if Dr. Friedman posted her diagrams??

Also, is there a way to access class of 2009 neurolectures? I couldn't find them in AT still website nor noodle.

Unfortunately, I believe that they took down all lectures from the still site, and noodle was new last year.
 
does anyone know if Dr. Friedman posted her diagrams??

Also, is there a way to access class of 2009 neurolectures? I couldn't find them in AT still website nor noodle.

if she did i couldn't find them earlier today.

her stuff is going to be the worst on this exam... thank goodness for the anatomy to counter it.
 
Woo Hoo Neuro one is done!:banana: Bring on Neuro two.

Neuroscience is psychotic. Psychotic people lose the ablity to test reality. Phycosis is a symptom of depression. Depression can occur with Mania. Just a little flight of ideas.
 
I know its far away, but apps for summer programs/research opportunities are going to be due either by march or earlier. I want to do something like that this summer, and there have been emails about a couple of things but I was wondering if there's a list of programs on a website somewhere that NYCOM students have done in the past?? Can any second years help on this?

Also, these kinds of things require letters of recommendation and I feel like we have no connection to any faculty yet really so I wouldn't know who to ask...
 
I know its far away, but apps for summer programs/research opportunities are going to be due either by march or earlier. I want to do something like that this summer, and there have been emails about a couple of things but I was wondering if there's a list of programs on a website somewhere that NYCOM students have done in the past?? Can any second years help on this?

Also, these kinds of things require letters of recommendation and I feel like we have no connection to any faculty yet really so I wouldn't know who to ask...

You should have gotten an email about the mandatory meeting for those interested in summer research. Around the same time last year we received a very detailed PDF showing what was done by the previous year.

Not sure about the LOR thing. MSKCC did not require one last year.
 
Im not really liking this test every two week schedule. I just got back into school mode today and now its the weekend and then we have a test in a week. Its hard to recover
 
I've just gotten around to looking at Dixon's stuff today.

"Genetic factors in other disorders such as depression, bipolar disorder, homosexuality, and alcoholism will be discussed in class."

Is she for real? 🙄
 
I've just gotten around to looking at Dixon's stuff today.

"Genetic factors in other disorders such as depression, bipolar disorder, homosexuality, and alcoholism will be discussed in class."

Is she for real? 🙄

You're a doctor, not a lawyer. Don't read so much into it.
 
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