Thoughts about undergrad human anatomy

[rangardrum]

I'm just curious what people thought about their undergrad human anatomy course & lab. Was it what you expected? Did it include more or less overall material than you expected? Do you feel more prepared for PT school as a result?

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[CherokeeWahine]

My major was required to take 4 semesters of anatomy/physiology (2 semesters of lower-level and 2 semesters of upper-level). The lower level was a piece of cake. The upper level was intense, but well worth it. I learned SOOOO much... Our professor took her questions from the anatomy class she taught for the med school, so we were really required to think critically.

 

[markelmarcel]

My undergrad anatomy was very basic-- we focused on the larger and/or superficial muscles (completely ignoring the deeper layers) and also spent a good bit of time on all other parts of the body/organ systems.

I'm 3 weeks into DPT school and we are ALL muscles/bones. We've just finished the lower limb and I have about 50ish muscles to learn by the 24th (our test date) -- some of the muscles I had never even heard of before this class! Haha!

Some things definitely came back to me, though. Obviously we use all anatomical vocabulary- posterior, anterior, distal, proximal, etc and so I got right back into that pretty quickly, but when we learned the muscles in undergrad our practicals were only identification; now I need to know origin, insertion, innervation and action like that *snaps fingers*

So, it's definitely a different focus, for sure, but I'm glad I've had some type of previous anatomy. (Actually, I'm really wishing I would've kept sitting in on my professor's advanced anatomy course because he did teach origin/insertion/etc but I was working full-time when he taught it)

 

[Nailey13]

I'm just curious what people thought about their undergrad human anatomy course & lab. Was it what you expected? Did it include more or less overall material than you expected? Do you feel more prepared for PT school as a result?

I'm in the process of taking my first anatomy course now (I'm a nontraditional student going back to school after getting a B.A. in 2009) and I have to say that I'm very pleasantly surprised by its quality. I'm fortunate enough to attend Santa Barbara City College (recently ranked one of the top ten CC's in the US) where we have multiple cadavers available to us in lab and some of my instructors have made the transition from UCSB (now that their anatomy/physiology courses have been canned). Top-level students are also given the opportunity to work on the student pro-section team next semester (preparing - i.e. opening - the cadavers for observation in lab) and I think that that experience will prove invaluable (if I'm lucky enough to be selected ).

All in all, I couldn't be more happy with my anatomy course here at SBCC (and really all my classes).

 

[kcrat21]

I'm not in PT school....yet, but my A&P courses were NOT what I expected at all. We BRIEFLY discussed the musculoskeletal system but for the most part it was everything but, and ALL physiology: urinary system, respiratory system, integumentary system, reproductive system....no muscles, no bones...totally not what I expected and I will definitely be behind when it comes to gross anatomy of the musculoskeletal system in PT school because of this...sigh.

The only saving grace in my opinion was in A&P II, we spent a lot of time on the nervous system...so I have a basic working knowledge of that I guess!

 

[optionpaloma]

I really loved my anatomy class... the skeletal and muscular sections especially. I took it on a lark, didn't intend for it to be a pre-req for anything, but because I loved it so much, I asked the professor what I could do career-wise to continue studying such things.

Like Nailey13, I took it at a community college. The systems given the most time were skeletal, muscular, and nervous systems (the prof's specialty was neuro physiology). We only dissected a cat, but the class after ours also got to look at brand-new plastinated bodies.

As far as grad school preparation goes, I'm only applying this cycle, so we'll see.... I also took it in 2009, so I'll definitely be brushing up on it this summer.