usefulness of prereq's

[CarolinaGirl]

Could some of you describe how the prereq's for med school have or are helping you in your classes? I know they are very helpful for the mcat but after that are they much use? What type of material from gen. chem, o. chem and physics do you have in your m1 and m2 classes? I know they are prereq's for a reason I just want to know how useful they are.

Thanks

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[ADeadLois]

Could some of you describe how the prereq's for med school have or are helping you in your classes? I know they are very helpful for the mcat but after that are they much use? What type of material from gen. chem, o. chem and physics do you have in your m1 and m2 classes? I know they are prereq's for a reason I just want to know how useful they are.

Thanks

The reason they are pre-reqs is because these classes assess your analytical ability in a scientific setting. It's not a matter of content. There is some carry over of basic topics like genetics, organic, biochem, etc., but it's not expected that you remember every last detail about them for med school. That's not the point. Keep in mind that what medical schools require for admission (MCAT, pre-req grades, etc.) tests your ability to succeed in the setting, not your aptitude in the content.

 

[45408]

The principles I learned in organic helped a fair amount in biochem, I thought. Finally understanding what kinds of molecules have an affinity for each other and in what way was a big help. Not having those classes would be like having only half of the puzzle. You won't be doing titration calculations, but if you don't understand the way that acids and bases act in different solutions, biochem probably won't make a whole lot of sense.

 

[ZagDoc]

The upper division prereqs help a little. Mainly they help give you a firm conceptual grounding, so things you read aren't as confusing.

Nothing can help with just the sheer amount of information you need to commit to memory though.

 

[Law2Doc]

Could some of you describe how the prereq's for med school have or are helping you in your classes? I know they are very helpful for the mcat but after that are they much use? What type of material from gen. chem, o. chem and physics do you have in your m1 and m2 classes? I know they are prereq's for a reason I just want to know how useful they are.

Thanks

They are not directly applicable to med school. They are useful for adcoms to decide who might be successful in med school because science, at some level, is still science. They also serve as a great set of hurdles to weed out the people who can handle med school from those who just want to go to med school -- courses like orgo tend to end the premed status of a lot of people, and that helps med schools out tremendously in culling the field via self selection. And since everyone has to take the same prereqs, it gives them another means of comparison in addition to the MCAT. While some bio and chem courses may have some carry over into physiology or biochem respectively, there is really nothing in med school that they aren't going to teach you from scratch in med school. So get through the prereqs, do well on the MCAT and thereafter you are free to forget them and start anew.

 

[anon-y-mouse]

Acid/base stuff really helped for biochem, physio, and very much so for pharm (acidifying urine to get rid of a weak base drug, etc.). Physics -- E&M helped a lot with blood flow and hemodynamics. Tension/etc. helped with pulmonary physiology. Orgo helped a lot with biochemistry, esp figuring out glycation reactions, dermatan/heparan/chondroitin/carbohydrate biochemistry. Orgo in general helped with a lot of my classes, understanding reactions, the behavior of functional groups, free radical reactions and formations of toxic metabolites, etc.

Though it's not a direct prereq, the fact I took biochemistry really helped me a lot for med school... I would say that's the #1 applicable college class for me.

 

[Law2Doc]

I actually had a med school interviewer ask me if they really still required physics as a prereq and then just shook his head in disbelief. They are required because they are required. There is no reason to delve deeper if you want to attend med school.

 

[Ashers]

At one point during pharm, the prof said, "here's why you had to take ochem, this drug has an Sn1 reaction."

I didn't remember enough biochem for it to be useful. The only useful classes for me that I took in college were immunology and endocrine phys. A background in microbio was helpful, not like I remembered all the stuff though, but at least I knew how to gram stain.

 

[CarolinaGirl]

Hey thanks for sharing guys. Your information was really helpful.

 

[ZagDoc]

The only useful classes for me that I took in college were immunology and endocrine phys.

Yeah, the two most uesful for me were developmental bio and immunology. But med school material is so much more intense it only means that 90% of the material is new instead to you of 100%.

 

[Ashers]

Yeah, the two most uesful for me were developmental bio and immunology. But med school material is so much more intense it only means that 90% of the material is new instead to you of 100%.

In some cases, like my immuno and endocrine phys, we actually covered those more in depth in undergrad, but then we had an entire semester devoted to the subject instead of a 3-4 week block in part of a class. So the second time through for me was much easier, and I could basically ignore studying that material in favor of studying other subjects I didn't know as well, but that I had tests on at the same time.

Biochem, it was basically 90% new.

 

[efex101]

I personally think that all the pre-reqs help for "background" type of information that you can build upon. I mean sure, you will not probably "directly" use information that you learned in organic for patient care but somehow "other" things I learned make more sense based on my working knowledge of organic/physics/etc.

 

[njbmd]

Moving to pre-allo. Allopathic medical students read and respond to threads in pre-allo and may follow and respond to this one if desired.