Which first year courses are actually useful/important once you're a physician

[BeastInfection]

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Just curious. Are the courses that are down at the cellular/molecular/biochemical level relevant once you get into your clinical years and beyond?

I can't help but feel like the vast majority of the stuff that we're learning in histo, genetics, biochem, etc. will never come up again once finished with these classes. Do they really have any importance in making you a good, effective clinician, or do these basic science details go out the window?

 

[SoundofSilver]

I would say gross anatomy is probably the most important M1 course. All other courses are important for building a foundation for later learning clinically applicable concepts, but aren't necessarily clinically relevant in themselves.

 

[CatFactorial]

Physiology would be my guess

 

[mvenus929]

Depends what you do in your career. I imagine genetics is very useful if you're a pediatrician or an ob/gyn or something. Histology is probably pretty important to pathologists.

 

[D elegans]

Just curious. Are the courses that are down at the cellular/molecular/biochemical level relevant once you get into your clinical years and beyond?

I can't help but feel like the vast majority of the stuff that we're learning in histo, genetics, biochem, etc. will never come up again once finished with these classes. Do they really have any importance in making you a good, effective clinician, or do these basic science details go out the window?

You probably won't actively think about these things on a day-to-day basis as a clinician, but I do think they are certainly the building blocks to understand all of the pathology that you will think about on a daily basis as a physician. And certainly to understand advances in the field, you'll need to have a solid bedrock of basic science.

 

[docB]

I agree with physiology. All the others are building blocks. Anatomy has been less helpful than I'd imagined although everyone carries some anatomy with them depending on what they do as a specialty.

 

[DeadCactus]

All of them. Physiology and anatomy are the most obvious. Yes, it's easier to gloss over the details of biochemistry or microbiology by memorization and protocol. That doesn't negate the benefit an understanding of those fields has on your decision making process though, especially when it comes to questions that haven't been settled yet...

That's my opinion as a third year anyway. Looking back, I feel like there were a lot of important connections that went un-made partly because professors focused on inane memorization and partly because I didn't put in the effort since it didn't seem relevant.

 

[JimmyChitwood]

Depends what you do in your career. I imagine genetics is very useful if you're a pediatrician or an ob/gyn or something. Histology is probably pretty important to pathologists.

Really? I don't even understand why we have a genetics course. It's so in depth and completely pointless. If you know the mechanical causes for trisomy 21, how does that help you? You don't even need to know that trisomy 21 causes Down Syndrome. You can look at a patient and diagnose them without any knowledge of genetics, whatsoever. Many times the diagnosis means nothing, as there's no treatment.

Anyway, I'm not mad at you. I just really really really really really hate genetics. Such a waste of time.

 

[JimmyChitwood]

Also D elegans I could have sworn I put this in another thread but anyway, love the avatar. Johnny Sac is the man...my favorite character from my all-time favorite show. Hands down.

 

[D elegans]

Also D elegans I could have sworn I put this in another thread but anyway, love the avatar. Johnny Sac is the man...my favorite character from my all-time favorite show. Hands down.

Haha yeah ya did but I will second that again. He's a god.

 

[startswithb]

Really? I don't even understand why we have a genetics course. It's so in depth and completely pointless. If you know the mechanical causes for trisomy 21, how does that help you? You don't even need to know that trisomy 21 causes Down Syndrome. You can look at a patient and diagnose them without any knowledge of genetics, whatsoever. Many times the diagnosis means nothing, as there's no treatment.

Anyway, I'm not mad at you. I just really really really really really hate genetics. Such a waste of time.

This makes me happy. I was just studying genetics and I. Hate. It. Physiology 4 life. 😍

 

[BeastInfection]

So this question mostly stems from a discussion I was having with a classmate, who claimed that the stuff we're doing now is absolutely essential to our development as physicians. I argued that 99% of it is essentially irrelevant. How is knowing the mechanism of mucus secretion by goblet cells in GI tract going to help me with patients? It seems like I will forget nearly all of this stuff, and it will not even matter in the end. That said, I'm not doing anatomy/physio/etc. yet, so I'm sure those will be a bit more useful.

Anyway, thanks for the responses.

 

[ArcGurren]

So this question mostly stems from a discussion I was having with a classmate, who claimed that the stuff we're doing now is absolutely essential to our development as physicians. I argued that 99% of it is essentially irrelevant. How is knowing the mechanism of mucus secretion by goblet cells in GI tract going to help me with patients? It seems like I will forget nearly all of this stuff, and it will not even matter in the end. That said, I'm not doing anatomy/physio/etc. yet, so I'm sure those will be a bit more useful.

Anyway, thanks for the responses.

I usually like to quote one of the big Kaplan lecturers in this - it boils down to: knowing the pathology and physiology of a process is what separates a physician from, say, a PA or an NP. We learn this stuff with the mindset of scientists, even if you don't intend to practice in academic or scientific institutions ultimately. It helps you form a knowledge base and an analytical mind. I agree that there's a lot of stuff you're never going to use again unless in rare cases (biochem for example) but that's not the point; you're being trained with a much higher base of knowledge.

 

[turkeyjerky]

So this question mostly stems from a discussion I was having with a classmate, who claimed that the stuff we're doing now is absolutely essential to our development as physicians. I argued that 99% of it is essentially irrelevant. How is knowing the mechanism of mucus secretion by goblet cells in GI tract going to help me with patients? It seems like I will forget nearly all of this stuff, and it will not even matter in the end. That said, I'm not doing anatomy/physio/etc. yet, so I'm sure those will be a bit more useful.

Anyway, thanks for the responses.

Well, it might help you to understand why Cystic fibrosis patients have pancreatic insufficiency and malnutrition, and knowing the molecular biology behind CF will help you understand future treatments that are coming out for it.

As for the original question, physiology and microbiology are probably the most useful 1st year classes that I had. The others, while not required on a day to day basis, are certainly a necessary building block for future material.

 

[BigRedBeta]

Everything CAN matter, whether the stuff you learn as an M1 WILL matter is entirely dependent on what you go into. Certain connections are obvious - for the surgeons (and the radiologists) knowing anatomy matters a whole bunch, for the critical care docs cardiac and respiratory physiology is essential.

The bigger point of the 1st two years is building vocabulary and at least some background. You may not know the details of genetic imprinting and that's ok, but at some point you'll likely end up talking to a genetics consultant who's going to talk to you like you have some background in the subject. It may fall to you to translate and then discuss the findings with a patient or their family.

The other major point about the first two years is exactly what ArcGurren said. I'd go further though and say it's not simply about being different than a nurse or PA or NP, but that the knowledge should make us make better decisions. To be quite honest, it's easy to "fake" your way through medicine. Many 3rd year students and plenty of interns and residents too, focus far too much on pattern recognition. That's okay to a certain extent, but the education should allow you to understand WHY in X situation you do Y. More so than that, with Evidence Based Medicine being what it is, what keeps physicians from pure cookbook medicine is knowing the basic sciences and being able to say that because of certain unique patient characteristics you actually need to do action Z instead of Y.

 

[Morsetlis]

This makes me happy. I was just studying genetics and I. Hate. It. Physiology 4 life. 😍

Funny enough, I took Genetics in college and made an A.

Now forgot everything.

Will probably reforget it again in 2 years.

The only class I'm enjoy atm is Histology. Such pretty pictures! (As opposed to cadavers.)

 

[carml]

Physio concepts and anatomy for sure. Of course, which part of each will depend on what field you're in.

 

[mvenus929]

Really? I don't even understand why we have a genetics course. It's so in depth and completely pointless. If you know the mechanical causes for trisomy 21, how does that help you? You don't even need to know that trisomy 21 causes Down Syndrome. You can look at a patient and diagnose them without any knowledge of genetics, whatsoever. Many times the diagnosis means nothing, as there's no treatment.

Anyway, I'm not mad at you. I just really really really really really hate genetics. Such a waste of time.

Your genetics course obviously went much more in depth than mine. Or I'm just far enough removed that I don't remember the details. I was more referring to modes of inheritance. If you know CF is an autosomal recessive disorder, and want to counsel patients on whether or not a son/daughter will have CF, it's useful to know some genetics concepts. This is what we're focusing on for step 1 studying, anyway.

My first year consisted of the molecular stuff (genetics, biochem, immunology, etc), most of which I don't remember in too much detail. Then we studied micro, musculo-skeletal (and integument), GI, and psych/neuro/behavioral science. I imagine a lot more of what I learned first year will be relevant than someone on a traditional curriculum.