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Now with PowerPoint we really have no books.
why do you have no books just because the lectures are done in powerpoint? we still have books....
So this is the modus operanti now.
How best do you learn from this?
(gut-feeling answer: just repeat until you know them verbatim ).
People b*tched about how hard medical school was before. Now with PowerPoint we really have no books. Just scratched-together lists to memorize and try to associate together.
WTF?
Well, if a course is based purely on books, then you can study that (well written, reviewed, and edited) book and be fairly certain you've covered all the testable material. You can also be confident that the material might have some relevance for the boards/clinical practice.
With powerpoint based lectures, sure, you still 'have a book'. But while learning the book will give you the information you actually need, you'll probably still fail all your tests unless you learn all the (poorly written, disjointed, isolated and random) facts about 'random lecturer for the day's' research which may or may not (IT'S THE NEXT BREAKTHROUGH CURE FOR CANCER!!!!) become clinically relevant 15 years from now and almost certainly has never been heard of by the writers of USMLE. Unfortunately, passing tests is one of those hoops you have to worry about instead of worrying about actually obtaining good knowledge, if you ever want to actually practice medicine.
Power Point is a tool. When we had chalk boards or white boards, we had to write the notes down as best we could. Now you have them at your disposal, and you just have to take down verbal notes while the prof lectures. Oh wait, many schools now record the lectures (audio and video) so you don't even have to do that. Now you'll have time to read the book.
Why does everyone bitch about having it so good?
Well, if a course is based purely on books, then you can study that (well written, reviewed, and edited) book and be fairly certain you've covered all the testable material. You can also be confident that the material might have some relevance for the boards/clinical practice.
With powerpoint based lectures, sure, you still 'have a book'. But while learning the book will give you the information you actually need, you'll probably still fail all your tests unless you learn all the (poorly written, disjointed, isolated and random) facts about 'random lecturer for the day's' research which may or may not (IT'S THE NEXT BREAKTHROUGH CURE FOR CANCER!!!!) become clinically relevant 15 years from now and almost certainly has never been heard of by the writers of USMLE. Unfortunately, passing tests is one of those hoops you have to worry about instead of worrying about actually obtaining good knowledge, if you ever want to actually practice medicine.
Power Point is a tool. When we had chalk boards or white boards, we had to write the notes down as best we could. Now you have them at your disposal, and you just have to take down verbal notes while the prof lectures. Oh wait, many schools now record the lectures (audio and video) so you don't even have to do that. Now you'll have time to read the book.
Why does everyone bitch about having it so good?
hey mr. class of 2011, you haven't started yet come back to us next year and then give your commentary.
Power Point is a tool. When we had chalk boards or white boards, we had to write the notes down as best we could. Now you have them at your disposal, and you just have to take down verbal notes while the prof lectures. Oh wait, many schools now record the lectures (audio and video) so you don't even have to do that. Now you'll have time to read the book.
Why does everyone bitch about having it so good?
Geeze, get over yourself already!
Hi Lifetime -
It's a little frustrating to hear someone criticize other people's attitudes when you haven't spent even a month in our shoes yet. It's not meant to tear you down, it's just frustrating.
(For the record I do agree with you - I prefer powerpoint to chalk talks. But I sympathize with other people who hate powerpoint.)
Since you haven't been in med school yet, here are some of the reasons why people hate power point, spelled out:
- Powerpoint has to dumb things down into neat little sound bites. It's just the nature of the "tool."
- However, in med school, most concepts are SO complicated (or require numerous steps to explain) that they really shouldn't be reduced into sound bites. It's like trying to boil down the Gettysburg Address into a 3-word sentence.
- People often have to turn to textbooks to fill in the gaps from the lecture. Textbooks, however, rarely do a great job of explaining stuff. Plus, they often throw in excess information that slows you down. Pharm is a PRIME example of this. Katzung's textbook throws tons of numbers at you - dosages, half-lives, etc. We were explicitly told not to try to memorize that, but you have to slog through it every time you try to read the textbook.
- Powerpoint also invites the professor to just slap a diagram up on a computer slide, without annotation or caption. That's annoying.
- God help you if your professor is truly lazy. Then those "sound bites" that I alluded to earlier start to sound more like "text messages." Trying to learn the pathophysiology of Addison's Disease or Grave's Disease from a series of (essentially) text messages makes you want to kill yourself.
I was however criticizing the medical student attitude that medical school is somehow the worst experience in academics or in life, and that outside perspectives are inferior to their own in general. You are learning a lot of material, but you aren't better than everyone else and more knowledgeable/wiser than everyone else because you are a MS whatever.
I was however criticizing the medical student attitude that medical school is somehow the worst experience in academics or in life, and that outside perspectives are inferior to their own in general. You are learning a lot of material, but you aren't better than everyone else and more knowledgeable/wiser than everyone else because you are a MS whatever.
It's a lot more prevalent in med school than it was for my undergrad, because most of our lecturers only have relatively brief stints teaching us, so they just have a few powerpoints. In undergrad, my first 22 credits of chemistry were on the chalkboard. Biochem was the only chem course that used powerpoint. Professors were planning the curriculum for an entire semester or year at a time, so they didn't resort to powerpoint nearly as much.This is nothing special to medical school. It's prevalent throughout academia.
I was however criticizing the medical student attitude that medical school is somehow the worst experience in academics or in life, and that outside perspectives are inferior to their own in general. You are learning a lot of material, but you aren't better than everyone else and more knowledgeable/wiser than everyone else because you are a MS whatever.
No, we're not wiser than you because we're med students, but your comments are kind of like a virgin giving sex tips. Sure, you've heard about it, but actually having experience adds a dimension to your input.
The difference is that these Powerpoints are handed to us as the basis of a lecture. It'd be fine if it was just a brown-bag discussion or a corporate meeting, where you weren't going to be trying to memorize everything off the slides.While it's all nice and good to say that medical school courses are something special, but they aren't. You'll find the same thing in business school, in corporate america, in higher academic circles with just as much jargon, abbreviations, and crap that people parrot back to you.
The difference is that these Powerpoints are handed to us as the basis of a lecture. It'd be fine if it was just a brown-bag discussion or a corporate meeting, where you weren't going to be trying to memorize everything off the slides.
Plus staring at a large screen in a dark room is painful for hours on end and then at home trying to study it.
While it's all nice and good to say that medical school courses are something special, but they aren't. You'll find the same thing in business school, in corporate america, in higher academic circles with just as much jargon, abbreviations, and crap that people parrot back to you. It wasn't much different with acetate overhead slides run off a computer printer or photocopied from books. Whether it's medical school powerpoint, undergrad powerpoint, powerpoint in PdD programs, or at Los Alamos...you will get crap no matter depending on the presenter.
Why do you say this? Have you personally experienced an MBA, PhD, and MD track, or is it your belief this is the case? If you have experienced them, have you sampled more than one school?This is nothing special to medical school. It's prevalent throughout academia...
Same question....the medschool experience is a unique pain that one only truly understands once they've experienced it.
Same question again.While it's all nice and good to say that medical school courses are something special, but they aren't. You'll find the same thing in business school, in corporate america, in higher academic circles with just as much jargon, abbreviations, and crap that people parrot back to you. It wasn't much different with acetate overhead slides run off a computer printer or photocopied from books. Whether it's medical school powerpoint, undergrad powerpoint, powerpoint in PdD programs, or at Los Alamos...you will get crap no matter depending on the presenter.
Why do you say this? Have you personally experienced an MBA, PhD, and MD track, or is it your belief this is the case? If you have experienced them, have you sampled more than one school?
When it comes Boards-time get ready to actually learn mechanisms. After each Board exam, go for a walk and let go of your $40,000/year for PowerPoints Education.