Pre-med course work

[morganbmac]

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I am about to go into my spring semester of my sophomore year in a couple of months. I have the chance to take Human anatomy or Comparative Vertebrate anatomy. Which one should I take in prep for med school? or take neither? I heard the MCAT has some anatomy on it so I would like to be prepared but not over worked..thanks! 🙂

 

[ANATOMYgirl22]

I am about to go into my spring semester of my sophomore year in a couple of months. I have the chance to take Human anatomy or Comparative Vertebrate anatomy. Which one should I take in prep for med school? or take neither? I heard the MCAT has some anatomy on it so I would like to be prepared but not over worked..thanks! 🙂

I took both. At my school comparative was a lot more time and effort because it included a dissection lab and you just had to remember a lot more since we worked with several different animals. Our basic anatomy course was ok, but it didn't really even touch the surface of what you have to know for a med-school level anatomy course and it had no dissection. So they were just really different classes.

If you only want to take anatomy to have a basic knowledge that will be sufficient for the MCAT you should be fine with just human anatomy. However, if you want something that might prepare you a little more for med school comparative could be useful as long as it includes dissection. Do you have any option at your school for taking a cadaver lab? If so I'd definitely recommend taking the human anatomy course and eventually cadaver lab.

 

[morganbmac]

The comparative anatomy course includes dissection but the human anatomy is just models..mostly nurses/allied health majors take that course.

I think I might try to take both..just depends on my schedule. Thank you so much! I had a feeling that comparative would be better.

 

[pietachok]

I am about to go into my spring semester of my sophomore year in a couple of months. I have the chance to take Human anatomy or Comparative Vertebrate anatomy. Which one should I take in prep for med school? or take neither? I heard the MCAT has some anatomy on it so I would like to be prepared but not over worked..thanks! 🙂

I never took either in college, but I think comparative would actually be more useful in the long run. You'll cover human anatomy in med school and a college intro isn't going to give you that much of a leg up on the material, especially with a few years between. I think the fundamental principles of comparative will set you up better to understand some of the embryology and pathophysiology of developmental abnormalities. But that's just my guess seeing as I haven't taken either.