SMP course load

[evoviiigsr]

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I will doing a special master's program at Mississippi College and I was wondering how many hours would be comparable to a first year med student's work load.

I plan on taking Neuroanatomy (5 hrs), Medical Physiology (5 hrs), and biochem (3 hrs)..do you guys think that is enough?

 

[DrMidlife]

This? http://www.mc.edu/campus/academics/BIO/degreesgraduate.htm

13 hours is about half of a med school load. On lots of med school websites, you can find the first & second year class schedule. In a traditional didactic curriculum, you're in class or lab at least 25 hours a week, sometimes more than 35. Other kinds of curricula have less class/lab time, but just as much material (that you learn on your own or in groups).

Assuming you're paying good money to be in this program, you deserve some information from your school on how they're going to support you beyond a transcript and a masters degree. What percentage of their graduates matriculate into medical school, how quickly, and which schools? What can you expect in letters of recommendation, before the end of your first semester, to support a same-year med school application process? I suggest you look at the SMPs at Boston, Tufts, Cincinnati, EVMS, etc. for comparison. Links are available in the "SMP list" thread stickied at the top of this forum.

Best of luck to you.

 

[MiamiDent]

That is a great question, evoviiigsr. I am currently enrolled to attend Mississippi College's program and was advised to take 13 or 14 hours as well. As a matter of fact, I signed up for exactly the same classes that you did. The program director was very clear in the fact that he did not want me taking too many hours because he didn't want me to get overloaded and, therefore, not earn excellent grades. Also, since the program is 30 hours, it still would be doable to take 16 or 17 hour second semester to finish.

This has confused me. Does Miss. College's SMP have any sort of reputation in the medical community? I know MANY students end up at Univ. of Miss. Medical and Dental schools. However, I am not a Mississippi resident so I would have to gain residency either during school or in my "glide" year in order to apply to these schools.

I have an acceptance to another non-thesis masters proram at Colorado State that mirrors many of the classes at Miss. College. I think at this point I am simply trying to decide which one will be most effective at placing me in a professional school provided I do well in the program.

Any comments? Do you think we should ask to enroll in more courses at Miss for the fall semester?

 

[evoviiigsr]

I doubt that what I listed is half a med school workload..that would be impossible..

I found the EVMS SMP (well known) curriculum, which consists of 16 hours for the fall. The classes are: Cell and Molec Bio (5 hrs), Histology (6 hrs), Embryology (3 hrs), and Recent Advances in Biomedical Sciences (2 hrs)

THUS, although we have signed up for 13 hours, I believe that our work load is comparable to the one I just mentioned..I've talked to some who have done the Mississippi program and they said that taking more than 13-14 hours is detrimental and is unheard of.

 

[DrMidlife]

You asked

how many hours would be comparable to a first year med student's work load

which is not the same question as

how many hours in an SMP curriculum

25-35 credit hours is normal for the first two years of med school. If you haven't heard it before, the preclinical years are like drinking out of a firehose. Some examples:

U of Mississippi: http://som.umc.edu/Curriculum/M1MasterSch0607M12.pdf

U of Washington: https://apps.medical.washington.edu/somoc/fs4_first_seattle_schedules.asp

Nova: http://medicine.nova.edu/forms/m1fallsched0809.pdf

EVMS: http://www.evms.edu/education/md-program/md-m1curr.html

You may need to dig a little to map the list of classes per term to the number of credits per term.