Q for those who didn't take anatomy in undergrad

[PoetMD]

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How did you all do? I am going to med school next year and have the chance at my undergrad school to take Anatomy during May session. This version of anatomy will obviously be a major step-down from med school's clinical anatomy but from you all's experience do you think it will be helpful to have some sort of introduction? Or were a lot of you successful w/o any prior classes in anatomy?

For that matter I am a non-science major who has not taken the undergrad version of biochem, micro or histology either. Any advice from you all who were non-science majors in undergrad and successful in med school?


Just curious.

 

[Law2Doc]

How did you all do? I am going to med school next year and have the chance at my undergrad school to take Anatomy during May session. This version of anatomy will obviously be a major step-down from med school's clinical anatomy but from you all's experience do you think it will be helpful to have some sort of introduction? Or were a lot of you successful w/o any prior classes in anatomy?

For that matter I am a non-science major who has not taken the undergrad version of biochem, micro or histology either. Any advice from you all who were non-science majors in undergrad and successful in med school?


Just curious.

Most folks in med school never had anatomy before and most do fine (true for both sci and non-sci majors). You may get a small leg up by taking something in the summer, but if you don't I certainly wouldn't sweat it.

 

[emack]

I didn't take anatomy as an undergrad. (Sample of my prior anatomical knowledge: "You mean there's only one spleen? What is a spleen, anyway?") In the end, I did fine on the exam (>1 s.d. above the class mean). You don't need to take a course before you start-- although it would help, just because you'd have some strategies on how to learn things.

If there are lots of MS1 subjects that you're really unfamiliar with, it might be worth trying to get a leg up on at least one of them. For any given subject, you can do fine without any prior knowledge-- but if your whole first year is going to be spent catching up with things most of your classmates have already been exposed to, it might just get frustrating & exhausting. It's such a nice feeling to look at new lecture notes & realize that things look somewhat familiar, and are thus not going to add to the mountain you face when you start med school-- you know, the one labelled: STUFF YOU DON'T KNOW YET.

Stupid mountain.

 

[ChuckRock]

at my undergrad they discourage pre-meds from taking anatomy. I'm not sure why but i'm sure there is a good reason. But what the hell do I know, I'm still in college.

 

[Law2Doc]

at my undergrad they discourage pre-meds from taking anatomy. I'm not sure why but i'm sure there is a good reason. But what the hell do I know, I'm still in college.

Med school is good about teaching you what you need to know. There is a small advantage showing up knowing a bit of biochem, and maybe some genetics. But neither of those courses is impossible to learn on the fly in med school. Most other stuff in college you won't have learned in adequate detail, or with the right emphasis. Any advantage you may have is very short lived and nonconsequential on exams. Thus you basically cheat yourself out of your opportunity to take non-medical classes if you fill up your college schedule with courses you are going to need to retake in med school. You are better off making yourself a more well rounded and well read person -- you will spend more than enough time with medicine later. That's why, I suspect, medical courses in college are often discouraged. Take the prereqs and use the rest of your time learning something totally different. You probably won't have the time (or inclination) to ever do so later.

 

[Ypo.]

How did you all do? I am going to med school next year and have the chance at my undergrad school to take Anatomy during May session. This version of anatomy will obviously be a major step-down from med school's clinical anatomy but from you all's experience do you think it will be helpful to have some sort of introduction? Or were a lot of you successful w/o any prior classes in anatomy?

For that matter I am a non-science major who has not taken the undergrad version of biochem, micro or histology either. Any advice from you all who were non-science majors in undergrad and successful in med school?


Just curious.

I didn't take anatomy or physiology in undergrad, and I did really well in anatomy. The students who took anatomy have a slight advantage at first-but that evened out pretty quickly. I didn't notice that they ever had any advantage in the lab-since most undergrad anatomy labs dissect cats.

I do however, recommend taking human physiology-because when you take the MCAT-there are a substantial amount of questions on that. Also, I knew nothing physiological when I was learning anatomy-sometimes it makes it easier/more meaningful to learn if you know the importance of something and not just where it is located in the body. You will learn very very little actual function of the body in anatomy during the first semester of medical school.
I didn't know what the hell lymph was for until this semester, or what the spleen does, etc...

 

[getunconcsious]

How did you all do? I am going to med school next year and have the chance at my undergrad school to take Anatomy during May session. This version of anatomy will obviously be a major step-down from med school's clinical anatomy but from you all's experience do you think it will be helpful to have some sort of introduction? Or were a lot of you successful w/o any prior classes in anatomy?

For that matter I am a non-science major who has not taken the undergrad version of biochem, micro or histology either. Any advice from you all who were non-science majors in undergrad and successful in med school?


Just curious.

I think you should take whatever anatomy you can...the class was nightmarish and I barely passed. Seriously ANY exposure will probably help you once you get to med school. Good luck.

 

[Handle]

I had no previous anatomy experience (and no actual dissection experience either) and I did very well (both at learning all the information and at dissecting the cadaver). Anatomy is going to take an incredible amount of time whether you had it in undergrad or not. I wouldn't worry about it -I'd enjoy your last real summer.

 

[Brainsucker]

I didn't know how to study at the beginning (translate: I didn't really study) so I didn't do very well on the first exam, but I've gotten much better at it since then. Put the time in and you'll do fine. If you're anything like me, you're a little burned out of undergrad at this point. Take some easy classes.

 

[PoetMD]

thanks for the advice...glad to know it won't kill me to not have taken anatomy.

 

[txguy]

First of all, let me commend you on your enthusiasm and for planning ahead!

Anyway, taking anatomy in undergrad might help you get a little bit of a head start, but I would actually suggest you take at least Biochem and Histology if you have time. The students in my class who didnt have biochem in undergrad have to work alot harder than those of us who have already had it. It is much better to struggle through that class when you have more time in undergrad, rather than almost zero time in med school. Virtually everyone struggles with anatomy in med school, because even those who have had it before have to work hard.

FYI, I didn't have anatomy in undergrad either, and I am always about 10 points above the mean (mean is usually around 85) for all of the anatomy exams so far.

Good luck to you and congrats on being accepted to med school 👍

-tx

 

[Ypo.]

Anyway, taking anatomy in undergrad might help you get a little bit of a head start, but I would actually suggest you take at least Biochem and Histology if you have time. The students in my class who didnt have biochem in undergrad have to work alot harder than those of us who have already had it.

-tx

Agreed! Especially about Biochem. I would also recommend taking genetics-at least at out school they taught it in less than two months and didn't do a good job-I wish I had taken it in undergrad...

 

[UCLAstudent]

I never had any anatomy or physiology (with the exception of the basic lower-division bio pre-reqs). It has not been a problem. I agree that taking biochem would be a much better way to spend your time.

 

[Hurricane]

Med school is good about teaching you what you need to know. There is a small advantage showing up knowing a bit of biochem, and maybe some genetics. But neither of those courses is impossible to learn on the fly in med school. Most other stuff in college you won't have learned in adequate detail, or with the right emphasis. Any advantage you may have is very short lived and nonconsequential on exams. Thus you basically cheat yourself out of your opportunity to take non-medical classes if you fill up your college schedule with courses you are going to need to retake in med school. You are better off making yourself a more well rounded and well read person -- you will spend more than enough time with medicine later. That's why, I suspect, medical courses in college are often discouraged. Take the prereqs and use the rest of your time learning something totally different. You probably won't have the time (or inclination) to ever do so later.

👍

 

[dr4ku]

I never had any anatomy or physiology (with the exception of the basic lower-division bio pre-reqs). It has not been a problem. I agree that taking biochem would be a much better way to spend your time.

If you have any good sense. I would take as high a level of microbiology/immunology/biochemical genetics courses I could find. Skip the anatomy. Most semester long biochem courses are oK, but shallow and will cover metabolism of carbs and fat, mainly. That is great, but pathways, signal transduction, and knowing cell receptors leading to synthesis and knowing how that synthesis (of what ever) happens will give you a much, much larger advantage in multiple ways. This will allow your mind to be free'ish (relative statement in med school) to kick bootey in anatomy and physiology and the MCAT. 2) it will take pressure off in the 1st semester of histology and biochem (two killer classes if you haven't had that stuff before). Why? b/c the do all the micro stuff. what a G-protein does, how dna coils, what is a signal cascade and who gets turned on and off if this kind of receptor is ignited. They wil cover the cell in both of those courses and it can rock your world if you haven't had it before. Why? you don't have the language. So everything you see will be new and you will be tested as though you have seen it before + going deeper than you thought they will and test you by asking what you should be able to know from knowing what you learned in undergrad and applying what you know now and then using both of those to extrapolate it into a new area you haven't seen, but should be able to apply it, if you didn't just memorize

So, do micro, micro, micro!!! get as small as you can!

Good luck! On the bright side. It is cool as hell!

 

[logos]

Anatomy would be very valuable. You wont get everything you need to know, but you will be at a huge advantage in medical school. The people in our class who had previously taken anatomy did very well with a lot less effort.

The only other course I reccomend taking before medical school is biochem.

Everything else i've had so far...anyone could pick up on the fly...

 

[ddmo]

Take a class that interests you which is unrelated to medicine. I took an Investments class my senior year and loved it.

I think taking an anatomy class is a waste of time in undergrad because you won't learn the details you will need to know in medical school, what you do learn will be the basic stuff, and you will forget most of it anyways.

I never took anatomy and pulled off one of the higher grades in med school, so I wouldn't stress it.

 

[Penelope1]

I agree with most of the above posters. Taking Anatomy is not necessary, and you'd probably forget a lot of the details. You'd still have to go through all the material to make sure you aren't missing anything, so it wouldn't save you that much time. I didn't take it in undergrad, and I've done very well on exams so far.

On the other hand, I took immuno and a ton of molecular you-name-it-classes (molecular genetics, molecular neuronal development, molecular mechanisms of cell cycle control, etc.), which apply to almost all my classes. I'd recommend taking something like that, because instead of struggling with the terminology, you'll be able to follow what the prof is saying and focus on learning the material.

In general, if you want a leg up, take a class that is low on memorization, because you won't remember that stuff by the time you're in med school. You *will* remember that dendritic cells phagocytose things and take them to lymph nodes, that neurons receive growth factors to tell them where to send their axons, and where in the cell proteins are synthesized.