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Hey Guys,
I wanted to start a thread to let others know a little more about a school's curriculum so they could be better informed when making a decision about that school. I am going to list my first year, first semester classes and then give my opinion overall on the curriculum so far. I hope to add to this as I progress through med school. I was really looking for something like this as I got accepted into several schools and it was hard for me to make a decision. I chose Creighton.
Creighton Curriculum M1 First Semester
Anatomy: We have many different lecturers for anatomy and embryology is included in anatomy, it is not a separate course. Most lecturers have a powerpoint of just pictures and a few words. Not really useful. Gross lab is mostly MWF.
MCB: Molecular and Cell Biology. Same as anatomy with a bunch of different lecturers. Powerpoints with more words compared to Anatomy. We have MCB small group every week or so where we are given a small case (someone with a skin lesion that appears cancerous) to discuss with our small group (a group of around 16 students and 2 professors/physicians). In my opinion this should come in the second year because we start talking a lot of path stuff (I've skimmed over most of Robbins Pathology and this is the stuff they start talking about and expect you to know).
Ethics: Speaks for itself. We have Ethics small groups too where we talk about certain ethical cases we are given to read. We have to watch a video series and discuss that also. The series is called "Unnatural Causes".
IPE: Interviewing and Physical Exam. I also think this class should be given in the second year. We are thrown into interviewing actors in front of our small group. We were never really trained in what to say and we are videotaped and critiqued.
Overall I think at Creighton they try to do a lot of hand holding and I think I made the wrong choice by choosing them. We have class on most days from 8am-5pm. We had a personality tests and stress management classes in the beginning but they didn't realize that if they just gave us good notes, we wouldn't be as stressed. They have a billion different resources that they come up to try to help us but most of them are useless because they aren't lecture specific. They should hire full time professional note takers for us. I know schools that do this. We have this crap system called "note service" that the students run but everyone takes notes in a different format and it is full of mistakes. How do you trust notes like that? Plus most of these notes are posted online late (like 2-3 days after the actual lecture) so if you depend on them, you will be behind and when that test comes on Friday, some notes from that week won't even be available. What a great system.
All the pertinent info is given in lecture so you spend your time writing down rapid speed notes and if you are stuck on something, you will most likely miss the next thing they are saying. And who here can really write as fast as someone speaks? You need to go back and listen to the podcast to catch what they are saying. This to me is an inefficient process. Remember, you don't have full notes beforehand or at all, just powerpoint with pictures so you can't really read the lecture ahead of time because it's useless in helping you understand what is going on. You could read Moore's before class or something and I think that might help. There is also a student with hearing problems in our class who needs to read lips, should he be penalized because he misses something in lecture? I think the professors here are just lazy and don't want to put together good notes for us. Powerpoints are a cop-out.
There is one professor named Dr. Brauer that does have PDF notes and almost every friend I talk to finds his notes the best and his lectures the best. I guess you can tell from my post that I am a little disappointed. Maybe you guys can share something about the curriculums are your schools so I can really see if I made the right choice. Thanks!
FYI: I am doing very well in these courses so this isn't an angry post from someone who is failing if that matters at all.
I wanted to start a thread to let others know a little more about a school's curriculum so they could be better informed when making a decision about that school. I am going to list my first year, first semester classes and then give my opinion overall on the curriculum so far. I hope to add to this as I progress through med school. I was really looking for something like this as I got accepted into several schools and it was hard for me to make a decision. I chose Creighton.
Creighton Curriculum M1 First Semester
Anatomy: We have many different lecturers for anatomy and embryology is included in anatomy, it is not a separate course. Most lecturers have a powerpoint of just pictures and a few words. Not really useful. Gross lab is mostly MWF.
MCB: Molecular and Cell Biology. Same as anatomy with a bunch of different lecturers. Powerpoints with more words compared to Anatomy. We have MCB small group every week or so where we are given a small case (someone with a skin lesion that appears cancerous) to discuss with our small group (a group of around 16 students and 2 professors/physicians). In my opinion this should come in the second year because we start talking a lot of path stuff (I've skimmed over most of Robbins Pathology and this is the stuff they start talking about and expect you to know).
Ethics: Speaks for itself. We have Ethics small groups too where we talk about certain ethical cases we are given to read. We have to watch a video series and discuss that also. The series is called "Unnatural Causes".
IPE: Interviewing and Physical Exam. I also think this class should be given in the second year. We are thrown into interviewing actors in front of our small group. We were never really trained in what to say and we are videotaped and critiqued.
Overall I think at Creighton they try to do a lot of hand holding and I think I made the wrong choice by choosing them. We have class on most days from 8am-5pm. We had a personality tests and stress management classes in the beginning but they didn't realize that if they just gave us good notes, we wouldn't be as stressed. They have a billion different resources that they come up to try to help us but most of them are useless because they aren't lecture specific. They should hire full time professional note takers for us. I know schools that do this. We have this crap system called "note service" that the students run but everyone takes notes in a different format and it is full of mistakes. How do you trust notes like that? Plus most of these notes are posted online late (like 2-3 days after the actual lecture) so if you depend on them, you will be behind and when that test comes on Friday, some notes from that week won't even be available. What a great system.
All the pertinent info is given in lecture so you spend your time writing down rapid speed notes and if you are stuck on something, you will most likely miss the next thing they are saying. And who here can really write as fast as someone speaks? You need to go back and listen to the podcast to catch what they are saying. This to me is an inefficient process. Remember, you don't have full notes beforehand or at all, just powerpoint with pictures so you can't really read the lecture ahead of time because it's useless in helping you understand what is going on. You could read Moore's before class or something and I think that might help. There is also a student with hearing problems in our class who needs to read lips, should he be penalized because he misses something in lecture? I think the professors here are just lazy and don't want to put together good notes for us. Powerpoints are a cop-out.
There is one professor named Dr. Brauer that does have PDF notes and almost every friend I talk to finds his notes the best and his lectures the best. I guess you can tell from my post that I am a little disappointed. Maybe you guys can share something about the curriculums are your schools so I can really see if I made the right choice. Thanks!
FYI: I am doing very well in these courses so this isn't an angry post from someone who is failing if that matters at all.
