Second week second thoughts - normal or problematic

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In this thread: preclinical students saying that medicine is not mentally stimulating using preclinical years as their basis of judgment, whining about clinical vignettes when that's how step one asks questions, crying about having to know facts as if you could practice medicine without knowing a million little facts and being able to integrate them, being surprised that the study of the human body actually involves learning about the human body, thinking that their school should cater to step one as if their careers are about taking a multiple choice test rather than taking care of patients.

What were you planning on doing if you saw one of those "obscure diseases" in real life? "Oh sorry Bill, your rare disease was low yield in medical school and not on step one so I decided not to learn it."

If you weren't planning on working hard and learning about medicine then just drop out and go to np school. I have a lot of complaints about how medical school is set up but it's funny how students with thirty days in medical school think they know more than their teachers who have been teaching medical students for thirty years

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Medicine is safe, that's why a lot of us are here.

It's definitely not intellectually stimulating though.

Ark, I swear...you make me laugh!!! Maybe I'm a *****, but for me it's plenty stimulating...sometimes TOO stimulating. Medicine is not easy...there are plenty of things that outright confuse me and don't make sense to me right off the bat (or sometimes ever). I'm sad to say that I'm not one of those people who was naturally gifted in the sciences in that sense, and I have to work pretty hard to do well and understand things. So there ya have it...you've got a girl (and a somewhat decent looking one at that, I might add..since looks are SO important to you lol) who is envious of you. Hope that makes your day! :)
 
What were you planning on doing if you saw one of those "obscure diseases" in real life? "Oh sorry Bill, your rare disease was low yield in medical school and not on step one so I decided not to learn it."
Lol that's why there are specialists. I'm not gonna be treating some kid's Pompe's disease as an internist. I hope your OBGYN rotation ends soon so you can get some of that sand out of your vagina.
 
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What were you planning on doing if you saw one of those "obscure diseases" in real life? "Oh sorry Bill, your rare disease was low yield in medical school and not on step one so I decided not to learn it."

Refer it to an academic hospital.
 
This is why I like PBL cases and clinical correlations. Gives you something to do other than just memorize facts.
 
It's very obvious that the people with all the tears here aren't the ones at the top of the class. No work ethic and no drive makes for poor medical students with a weak knowledge base
 
It's very obvious that the people with all the tears here aren't the ones at the top of the class. No work ethic and no drive makes for poor medical students with a weak knowledge base
Commiserating with others on this site just makes you more and more cynical, and less pleasant to be around in person. People should try being more optimistic... You are much more happy generally.
 
It's very obvious that the people with all the tears here aren't the ones at the top of the class. No work ethic and no drive makes for poor medical students with a weak knowledge base
I think real world medicine -- you know, outside of academic centers -- will be an eye-opener for you.
 
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I think real world medicine -- you know, outside of academic centers -- will be an eye-opener for you.

Okay Mr i did hard labor outside so medicine in an air conditioned hospital will be easy compared to that wait omg first year is so hard I can't handle the Krebs cycle

Have you even step foot in a hospital? Or are you strutting around campus in your short white coat
 
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Okay Mr i did hard labor outside so medicine in an air conditioned hospital will be easy compared to that wait omg first year is so hard I can't handle the Krebs cycle

Have you even step foot in a hospital? Or are you strutting around campus in your short white coat
What's a hospital?



You're crazy if you think non-academic physicians use (let alone remember) a lot of the obscure bull**** that we learn.
 
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What's a hospital?



You're crazy if you think non-academic physicians use (let alone remember) a lot of the obscure bull**** that we learn.

What makes you so sure that you're learning obscure bs? How many physicians have you worked with? How much experience do you have in clinical medicine? You'd be surprised to discover how much they do remember, especially pertaining to their field. They don't teach you these things for no reason. You might think that learning about the alpha and beta subunit of hcg is low yield and not relevant then you find out that in ob that the alpha subunit being in tsh lh fsh hcg is not just minutiae from medical school but necessary information to understand why getting a tsh level and prolactin are an important part in the evaluation of amenorrhea
 
What makes you so sure that you're learning obscure bs? How many physicians have you worked with? How much experience do you have in clinical medicine? You'd be surprised to discover how much they do remember, especially pertaining to their field. They don't teach you these things for no reason. You might think that learning about the alpha and beta subunit of hcg is low yield and not relevant then you find out that in ob that the alpha subunit being in tsh lh fsh hcg is not just minutiae from medical school but necessary information to understand why getting a tsh level and prolactin are an important part in the evaluation of amenorrhea
Yeah, I'm sure the OBGYNs working in community hospitals have that right on the tip of their tongue.
 
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I like that my school uses clinical vignettes in almost all of its exam questions but, since we're at such a low level as MS1's, they can be a bit amusing to read when they're just trying to test a simple concept.

"Patient has a BP of X/Y and pulse of Z. The patient has [a bunch of symptoms], a history of [diseases that we may or may not have heard about], has these abnormalities in the lab tests... Also, what does ADH do?"

ADH also known as Vasopressin is secreted by the Posterior Pituitary that recognizes osmotic changes in plasma. ADH binds to Vasopressin type 2 receptors causing increasing in aquaporin channels in the collecting duct to reuptake water. Vasopressin also binds to Vasopressin type 1 receptors on smooth muscle of arterioles causing vasoconstriction to restore blood pressure.
 
In this thread: preclinical students saying that medicine is not mentally stimulating using preclinical years as their basis of judgment, whining about clinical vignettes when that's how step one asks questions, crying about having to know facts as if you could practice medicine without knowing a million little facts and being able to integrate them, being surprised that the study of the human body actually involves learning about the human body, thinking that their school should cater to step one as if their careers are about taking a multiple choice test rather than taking care of patients.

What were you planning on doing if you saw one of those "obscure diseases" in real life? "Oh sorry Bill, your rare disease was low yield in medical school and not on step one so I decided not to learn it."

If you weren't planning on working hard and learning about medicine then just drop out and go to np school. I have a lot of complaints about how medical school is set up but it's funny how students with thirty days in medical school think they know more than their teachers who have been teaching medical students for thirty years
Pretty much. That's why it's so hilarious, when medical students comment on what's necessary and not necessary in their curriculum. As a med student you really have no credential to comment on what's necessary and what is superfluous. NONE. If you don't want to know that much detail then go to PA/NP school. When you're the one with ultimate responsibility, the buck stops with you. Don't blame your medical school for you making uninformed (a.k.a. bad) decisions to attend. Quit early and go to PA/NP school.
 
ADH also known as Vasopressin is secreted by the Posterior Pituitary that recognizes osmotic changes in plasma. ADH binds to Vasopressin type 2 receptors causing increasing in aquaporin channels in the collecting duct to reuptake water. Vasopressin also binds to Vasopressin type 1 receptors on smooth muscle of arterioles causing vasoconstriction to restore blood pressure.
Here's a better way to test what you know and didn't just regurgitate and memorize. Rainman can do what you just did. For example this could be a sequential item set on Step 1:

1. A 48-year-old man was admitted to the hospital for an elective cholecystectomy, and a presurgical workup reveals a serum sodium level of 125 mEq/L (normal 135–145 mEq/L). He complains of some fatigue, anorexia, and very mild confusion. Vital signs are all within normal limits, as is his physical examination. Urinalysis reveals a urine osmolarity of 620 mOsm/kg. What is the most likely diagnosis and what is its cause?

A)
B)
C)
D)
E)

2. Further questioning reveals a 60-pack per year history of smoking. He denies any recent vomiting or diarrhea, has a normal albumin level, and shows no signs of heart failure. He denies taking diuretics or other medications. A chest x-ray film reveals a 3-cm, spiculated pulmonary nodule near the hilum of the right lung. What syndromes are associated with syndrome of inappropriate secretion of antidiuretic hormone ?

A)
B)
C)
D)
E)
 
Do OB-Gyns in community hospitals not take boards?
Sure, but that doesn't mean they retain the information after taking the boards, or that knowing the specifics of some obscure factoid is actually useful in day-to-day practice.
 
Sure, but that doesn't mean they retain the information after taking the boards, or that knowing the specifics of some obscure factoid is actually useful in day-to-day practice.
Really? Do you know what MOC (Maintenance of Certification) or CME (Continuing Medical Education) is? Who decides what is an obscure factoid? You?
 
Really? Do you know what MOC (Maintenance of Certification) or CME (Continuing Medical Education) is? Who decides what is an obscure factoid? You?
So I take it you remember every single slide of every single lecture from the entirety of your medical education? I mean, all facts and valuable and you never know when you'll need to know the subunit arrangements of 20S core particle of the proteasome.
 
So I take it you remember every single slide of every single lecture from the entirety of your medical education? I mean, all facts and valuable and you never know when you'll need to know the subunit arrangements of 20S core particle of the proteasome.

And if someone designs a drug that targets that subunit are you going to throw up your hands and say nah I'm not using that drug it's low yield

It's not about knowing every single fact but being aware of them so that at the very least, you'll know to look something up if it comes up in real life. You can't have ehlers danlos on your differential if you never learned about it

If you're not interested in learning medicine then go back to manual labor
 
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And if someone designs a drug that targets that subunit are you going to throw up your hands and say nah I'm not using that drug it's low yield
I think understanding the general concepts behind proteasome function is more important than memorizing subunit arrangements, but what do I know?
 
So I take it you remember every single slide of every single lecture from the entirety of your medical education? I mean, all facts and valuable and you never know when you'll need to know the subunit arrangements of 20S core particle of the proteasome.
Did I say that? Whether you like it or not, boards and specialty boards will test you on supposed "factoids", although on the USMLE it may not be a direct recall question asking for a factoid. Most of the time it will be an application question that requires knowing the factoid, but just knowing the factoid alone won't answer the question.

I've never had a professor test me on the actual subunits of a proteasome (more on the subunits of the ribosome - bc different antibiotics act on different subunits to inhibit protein synthesis in terms of MOA). We were taught however about protein degradation thru a proteosome by ubiquination, which is important to know as it is thought to contribute to many diseases - Parkinson's, Alzheimer's etc. (those aren't zebra diseases by the way).
 
And if someone designs a drug that targets that subunit are you going to throw up your hands and say nah I'm not using that drug it's low yield

It's not about knowing every single fact but being aware of them so that at the very least, you'll know to look something up if it comes up in real life. You can't have ehlers danlos on your differential if you never learned about it

If you're not interested in learning medicine then go back to manual labor
Yes, it's not memorizing every line of the powerpoint and recalling it decades later in practice that is the issue. But if you haven't been exposed to it at all or chose to purposefully not learn it, then there is no way you'll know anything about it, when a new drug or therapy either builds on or completely changes our understanding of that information. If it's an "obscure" disease, then if you didn't learn it, then it definitely won't be on your differential.

Even if you go into Internal Medicine, your specialty boards are not going to test you ONLY on bread and butter, common diseases.
 
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Lol that's why there are specialists. I'm not gonna be treating some kid's Pompe's disease as an internist. I hope your OBGYN rotation ends soon so you can get some of that sand out of your vagina.
Yeah, the main reason for that is bc internists don't treat children, genius.

On the other hand, if you are a pediatrician, guess who is going to be doing long term chronic care, once the pediatric specialist has been consulted, given his opinion on diagnosis and management? Disorders of metabolism is definitely covered in Pediatric boards.
 
Yeah, the main reason for that is bc internists don't treat children, genius.

On the other hand, if you are a pediatrician, guess who is going to be doing long term chronic care, once the pediatric specialist has been consulted, given his opinion on diagnosis and management? Disorders of metabolism is definitely covered in Pediatric boards.
That's why I didn't say pediatrician.
 
I'm often amazed at how amazed medical students are when they realize that there's a ****-ton of information they have to memorize/learn before they can start solving problems that utilize this information.

It's like expecting to be able to write a book before learning the alphabet.
Off topic, but I was wondering if I have reason to be concerned about my future performance in med school if organic was a struggle for me to enjoy, yet physics and other not as memorize-y subjects were fun? I know organic is only one class and I don't want it to get into my head too much..but one of my friends who is a doc mentioned that of all the courses he took in undergrad, organic was the most similar to the first two years of med school.

It also seems as though certain people just have a knack for it..and I could never understand why or how this could be when these same people were bombing out of physics (yet organic is 100x harder IMO w/ all the exceptions one must know to get by in that class).

My dad's an engineer, so this may be a genetic problem on my end LoL
 
Off topic, but I was wondering if I have reason to be concerned about my future performance in med school if organic was a struggle for me to enjoy, yet physics and other not as memorize-y subjects were fun? I know organic is only one class and I don't want it to get into my head too much..but one of my friends who is a doc mentioned that of all the courses he took in undergrad, organic was the most similar to the first two years of med school.

It also seems as though certain people just have a knack for it..and I could never understand why or how this could be when these same people were bombing out of physics (yet organic is 100x harder IMO w/ all the exceptions one must know to get by in that class).

My dad's an engineer, so this may be a genetic problem on my end LoL
Organic chemistry isn't so much necessary as biochemistry. Which is better, Imo. Don't take everything a physician who's been practicing a while to heart. Lots of things have changed.
 
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I think real world medicine -- you know, outside of academic centers -- will be an eye-opener for you.
To be fair you realize that academic medical centers have a stranglehold on medical education right? You will do medical school + residency + fellowship most likely at an academic medical center. You think those who do IM and Peds who only want to do outpatient IM or outpatient Peds love their inpatient rotations? Most likely not, but they have no choice as most of their residency curriculums are inpatient with once a week outpatient clinics. It's a LONG TIME till the light at the end of tunnel when you can finally practice far, far away in rich suburbia.
 
Off topic, but I was wondering if I have reason to be concerned about my future performance in med school if organic was a struggle for me to enjoy, yet physics and other not as memorize-y subjects were fun? I know organic is only one class and I don't want it to get into my head too much..but one of my friends who is a doc mentioned that of all the courses he took in undergrad, organic was the most similar to the first two years of med school.

It also seems as though certain people just have a knack for it..and I could never understand why or how this could be when these same people were bombing out of physics (yet organic is 100x harder IMO w/ all the exceptions one must know to get by in that class).

My dad's an engineer, so this may be a genetic problem on my end LoL
Organic Chemistry is utterly useless. If anything on the "new" MCAT, they should have REPLACED Organic with Biochemistry instead of just adding it on. It is not indicative of the first 2 years of medical school (thank God).
 
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Organic Chemistry is utterly useless. If anything on the "new" MCAT, they should have REPLACED Organic with Biochemistry instead of just adding it on. It is not indicative of the first 2 years of medical school (thank God).

Organic chemistry teaches you to think and teaches you how to memorize crap that you need to know to understand the concepts. Best class for med school in my opinion
 
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Organic chemistry teaches you to think and teaches you how to memorize crap that you need to know to understand the concepts. Best class for med school in my opinion
Except there are better classes available to achieve this same goal. At the very least, in that case, it should be the one-semester of Organic Chemistry, not Organic I and II.
 
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Except there are better classes available to achieve this same goal. At the very least, in that case, it should be the one-semester of Organic Chemistry, not Organic I and II.

You should understand the basics of organic to understand the basics of biochem and pharmacology
 
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You should understand the basics of organic to understand the basics of biochem and pharmacology
Except Biochemistry at the medical school level is not taught like Biochemistry at the undergrad level. The emphasis is much more on human biochemical disease. For pharmacology you definitely don't need to know organic chemistry besides only maybe knowing substituent groups (For pharmacists in their education, organic chemistry plays a much deeper role).
 
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