Please... tell me the classes get better in med school!

[plaz]

And I don't mean in terms of difficulty. I mean in terms of the content of the course. I'm so sick of jumping through the premed hoops... G-chem, O-chem, biology, physics... Don't get me wrong; I find the material very interesting at times, but I always ask myself.... to what end?

The answer, for now, is medical school.

But that's why I get so tired of these classes. I perform well, but I always wonder how in the world I am going to use this information in the future. I mean, physics can only be so helpful in becoming a doctor. It's just like I felt with geometry through calculus in high school.

I want to learn biochemistry so I know the reasoning behind the drugs I give my patients. I want to learn anatomy so I know how to navigate my way through a surgery. I want to learn how to identify diseases and injuries so I can treat them.

What I am hoping for: that when I get to medical school, all of the information ingested and all of the courses taken will be done with the end of becoming a better doctor.

I can't handle medical school if it's 4 more years of undergraduate education--learning very interesting things, but never really applying it in real-world situations.

To med students in particular... can I count on this being the case?

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[muhali3]

No, nothing you learn in med school will be used during medical practice...-_-

 

[killinsound]

not really.

problem is, you have PhDs teaching gross amounts of minutiae to future physicians. You understand the material but you'll never use it in practice. There are a lot of clinical correlations that are presented and are very interesting, but your first two years are mainly to give you a foundation (to differing extents at different schools) for the boards and a framework to build your 3rd and 4th year on, at least at my school..

 

[scrambizle]

I disagree with killinsound. The detail that is presented in 1st and 2nd year is essential for the practice of medicine. You must understand the normal physiology before you can understand the abnormal before you can treat a pathology. Anatomy is pretty darn important, especially for surgery. Some of biochem may be a little more applicable to peds with all the metabolic disorders, but it's still important to understand.

 

[Depakote]

Your first year you'll learn a lot of material that will serve as a foundation for some of your later coursework. That doesn't necessarily mean you'll be learning about things that go wrong or how to treat people.

Biochemistry is a good foundation course, but your intricate knowledge of the krebs cycle will probably not save anyone's life. You're not going to be learning about any drugs here, that'll be pharmacology. You will hear about a few genetic and metabolic disorders, but they're few and far between.

Anatomy is similar... you're going to be drowning in detail for the things you learn that are clinically useful. Still, it's a good course and you'll have a good understanding of what is where in the body and how everything goes together by the time it is finished.

Second year was when I found clinically relevant topics coming out on a daily basis. I had microbiology/immunology, pharmacology, physiology and pathology that year.

Immuno- the immune system, how it works and what goes wrong with it
Micro- drugs and bugs
Pharm- more drugs
Path- diseases, what they affect and a little bit on how to treat them

^this is the stuff you're looking forward to

 

[266549]

I totally sympathize with you, OP. it is SOOOO frustrating to learn the same thing 10 different times in 10 different ways because of 10 different courses. (ex: learning about dna details in biochem, then in genetics, then in cellular bio, etc etc)

this is kind of a big thing to me, so i've looked in to the curriculum at the schools i'm interested in. some schools have very different classes compared to the classic anatomy, biochem, immuno type courses. the integrated system looks interesting and like you might come out of the class from one day to the next and be able to at least REALIZE where you can apply the info you just learned about. i know temple has integrated but i can't remember right now who else does.

 

[MilkmanAl]

I really liked UAMS's integrated curriculum. Still, I felt like I was beating my head against a wall during most of cell bio and microanatomy. There's a lot of fairly useless relationships mumbo jumbo in anatomy, too. You're not an anatomist. You don't need to know that stuff.

 

[Ponger]

And I don't mean in terms of difficulty. I mean in terms of the content of the course. I'm so sick of jumping through the premed hoops... G-chem, O-chem, biology, physics... Don't get me wrong; I find the material very interesting at times, but I always ask myself.... to what end?

Those classes aren't for the the most part taught intent of giving you medical correlates. There are plenty of people in those classes who aren't pre-med who would have no use for correlates. e.g. majors or non-premeds

No doubt those classes would be better with more apparent applications, but that can be said of almost any class.

The funny thing is that as much as you don't like taking the premed classes, those professors often don't like teaching premeds. Premed's see those classes as a means to an end and don't really appreciate the material like a dept-major would.

I wonder why no one ever created a school with the sole purpose of only teaching stuff relevant to med school. It would seem like a moneymaking idea.

 

[QofQuimica]

And I don't mean in terms of difficulty. I mean in terms of the content of the course. I'm so sick of jumping through the premed hoops... G-chem, O-chem, biology, physics... Don't get me wrong; I find the material very interesting at times, but I always ask myself.... to what end?

The answer, for now, is medical school.

But that's why I get so tired of these classes. I perform well, but I always wonder how in the world I am going to use this information in the future. I mean, physics can only be so helpful in becoming a doctor. It's just like I felt with geometry through calculus in high school.

I want to learn biochemistry so I know the reasoning behind the drugs I give my patients. I want to learn anatomy so I know how to navigate my way through a surgery. I want to learn how to identify diseases and injuries so I can treat them.

What I am hoping for: that when I get to medical school, all of the information ingested and all of the courses taken will be done with the end of becoming a better doctor.

I can't handle medical school if it's 4 more years of undergraduate education--learning very interesting things, but never really applying it in real-world situations.

To med students in particular... can I count on this being the case?

You're asking two different questions here.

1) Will you have to jump through hoops (and to what end)?
Absolutely. You have chosen to go into a field that will require you to take multiple choice tests for the rest of your career. Multiple choice tests tend to focus on irrelevant minutiae that often don't correlate with what you need to know for clinical practice. But these are hoops necessary to become a licensed physician, so you will have to take time away from the clinic to jump through them. Ditto for the premed courses you are taking now.

2) Will what you learn in med school be applicable to the "real world"?
It won't be this all-or-nothing. You'll get a mixture of relevant and irrelevant information, with first year being the most irrelevant and third year (maybe fourth if you do some acting internships) being the most relevant. Try not to judge the rest of med school based on first year. First year is probably the easiest academically for a lot of people, but it can also be the most frustrating because, well, you don't know enough yet to apply anything to a real world situation.

 

[RySerr21]

And I don't mean in terms of difficulty. I mean in terms of the content of the course. I'm so sick of jumping through the premed hoops... G-chem, O-chem, biology, physics... Don't get me wrong; I find the material very interesting at times, but I always ask myself.... to what end?

The answer, for now, is medical school.

But that's why I get so tired of these classes. I perform well, but I always wonder how in the world I am going to use this information in the future. I mean, physics can only be so helpful in becoming a doctor. It's just like I felt with geometry through calculus in high school.

I want to learn biochemistry so I know the reasoning behind the drugs I give my patients. I want to learn anatomy so I know how to navigate my way through a surgery. I want to learn how to identify diseases and injuries so I can treat them.

What I am hoping for: that when I get to medical school, all of the information ingested and all of the courses taken will be done with the end of becoming a better doctor.

I can't handle medical school if it's 4 more years of undergraduate education--learning very interesting things, but never really applying it in real-world situations.

To med students in particular... can I count on this being the case?

you were doing better than i was. at least you find the material interesting. Physics...ochem......gen chem.......ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ!!!!!!!!! . I took them becuase I was told that I had to. Now, when I got to the courses for my major that I actually enjoyed (anatomy, physiology, etc) i absolutely loved every minute of it.

 

[Pinkertinkle]

class in medical school are great if 1) theyre pass no pass and 2) you don't have to go.