Ugrad Gen-Chem: What's Important?

[PaddyofNine]

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Hey,

I was just wondering what you found were the most important and/or relevant bits of your undergraduate general chemistry courses, i.e. what sections of the course you found necessary to know in medical school?

Obviously, all of it is important to a certain extent, but to the same degree, stuff like Acid-Bases could be said to be more important! (This is what I gather from friends in med school!)

I have some parts of the course which I think will be of high relevance in the future (such as the aforementioned Acid/Base stuff) and some which I will surely (and gladly 😛) forget after the final exam, e.g. crystalline structures in inorganic chemistry!

What do you think?

 

[nutmegs]

acid-base is definitely a big one... but honestly, anything you need to remember from gen chem they seem to review in 30 seconds before they use it. as long as you've seen or understood it at one point in time I wouldn't worry about it.

 

[KyGrlDr2B]

After you take the mcat, you are allowed to forget everything because you will use very little again. Like the above poster said, if they are about to delve into something again like acid-base, they review it all for you. We even had a lecture on mitosis/meiosis, and basic cell stuff in one of my classes. It was just a refresher because you forget all the details as time goes on. Don't worry about it.

 

[uclacrewdude]

electron pushing helps a lot in metabolism and stuff. thats what we're up against in biochem at the moment. it really helps you understand TCA.

 

[Neuronix]

Originally posted by PaddyofNine
I was just wondering what you found were the most important and/or relevant bits of your undergraduate general chemistry courses, i.e. what sections of the course you found necessary to know in medical school?

None of it. Absolutely none of it. That goes for most of the ugrad pre-reqs while we're at it. Orgo? None. Biochem? We got it in med school, but way less detailed and with a different focus. Intro Bio? A little, but it's rehashed and expanded. Physics? None.

Just hoops to jump through... The whole thing is like a big system of hoops.

Cynically yours...

 

[johnstoner]

i disagree...there are a lot of fundamental concepts in physics and general chemistry that can apply to physiology. I was surprised how much stuff actually goes on in the body that has some relevance to stuff learned in undergrad...having taken biochem...taking it again in med school its heck of a lot easier than learning it from scratch.

same goes for some of the basic o chem stuff that you see in reactions in biochem in med school.

 

[group_theory]

I agree with the above poster

However, you should also learn general chemistry just for knowledge and understanding of how the world works.

Why does salting the streets/roadways prevent icing conditions in the winter? What happens when the temperature gets too low?

Well, the lake looks like it is covered in ice. Is it all ice or is the surface just ice? Should I take a walk on the ice?

Why shouldn't you take a bottle of soda (from the fridge), place it in a hot car (on a hot summer day) for a few hours before openning it?

Knowing some chemistry also helps prevent you from looking like a fool. During a news broadcast, a news reporter was near a nuclear powerplant, where government officials were handing out Potassium Iodine tablets to local residents (just in case).

Anyway, the reporter said, "Potassium Iodide, also known as K1 (not KI, but Kay-ONE) ..." 🙄

Now these answers might seem logical but remember - you have some basics in chemistry. It's amazing what some people do due to their lack of knowledge of chemistry

 

[Stinger86]

Originally posted by PaddyofNine
Hey,

I was just wondering what you found were the most important and/or relevant bits of your undergraduate general chemistry courses, i.e. what sections of the course you found necessary to know in medical school?

Acids and bases and... that's it.

Like someone up above said.. if you need to know it for a med school course, they'll review it first.

 

[TTSD]

Not yet being in medical school.. I can postulate this much:

I highly doubt you'll be asked to be able to recall and regurgitate like 90% of the stuff you learn, such as names and formulas. But I would think a good solid understanding of the mechanistics of chemistry would be a good thing to learn. I mean, we all groaned at Le Chatelier, but you end up using that principle in just about everything.

 

[Singh]

I'd say especially Enzyme-kinetics are important later on.

But as it has been said, acid-base is also very important.

Organic chemistry is of lesser importance.

 

[Goofyone]

OP:

There are a few minor things that are important, but none are so complicated that you couldn't instantly pick them up again while they're being explained to you.

 

[Da Vinci2]

All the pre-reqs are useful. Although you don't need to know the details, you will need to know basic molecular structures, physics, o-chem, biochem... etc, to understand how and why certain medication or disease happens. Physics: as an example, the Oms' law finds its way into hemodynamic monitoring. Biochem: helps you understand drug mechanisms. O-Chem: helping you to know why certain drugs are in one class... etc.

 

[IlianaSedai]

Diffusion and osmosis.

But if you're doing your best to learn as much as you can (and get a decent grade in the class), why worry about this at all?