Which subject do you wish you had more knowledge about before MSI/II?

[fungo21]

I know most current students will say (and rightfully so) to take it easy before starting MSI, but I'm just curious whether there is a majority opinion as to which course that current (and former) students wish they had some more background in (whether a class, casual reading, etc) before taking the class in school.

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[Dr JPH]

Each person has their own strengths and weaknesses. Like many premeds I was the Bio/Biochem person in college and I went heavy on the science courses before med school so I felt prepared in that sense..

I think for me the one thing I would have liked to know more about would probably have been the BUSINESS aspect of medcine. Something that is very difficult to teach in medical school and even harder to learn as an MS3/4

 

[Dartos Vader]

I was grateful that I had taken as much physiology as I had. One of the toughest classes in med school, and one of the most important. I had taken very little micro, but scored about 98% in our micro course. Medical micro is WAY easier than what the micro majors learn (although I still think that is a good major). People who were heavy into pharm type courses all seemed to rock out in med school. Cadaver based anatomy would have been a big help.

 

[Jack Daniel]

I chose physiology but it would really be a tie between physio and anatomy. I think if I'd taken at least one upper level physiology course it would have made my first-year medical physiology course a lot easier. Anatomy was hard for me because of the scope and amount of material. Some of the students in my class who were PA/NP/PTs (who had taken grad-level anatomy) seemed to have a much easier time with it.

 

[DragonWell]

I don't really think a specific knowledge of any one subject makes that big a difference in the overall scheme of things. All it really means is that a few aspects of the program might be a little easier to grasp or require a little less work than others.

I think having a broad base is more important than any one class - you will forget the details of anatomy, pharm or biochem by the time you get to med school, but if you have a broad base in the sciences, you will have a conceptual framework to build upon and integrate new material into. From this perspective, things like cell bio, basic physics, genetics, chemistry become real important - if you have the concepts integral to these subjects down, you will find that these basic ideas are repeated over and over as you go through med school. If you don't understand the basics, you will be doing even more memorization to try to cover your lack of understanding.

That said, I would actually recommend an embryology course. At least in my experience, many students have a tough time picking up embryo during med school, and it really helps with a lot of anatomy and even some path. The concepts are foreign enough that being exposed to them at least once before med school would likely be helpful.

 

[Jamers]

I know most current students will say (and rightfully so) to take it easy before starting MSI, but I'm just curious whether there is a majority opinion as to which course that current (and former) students wish they had some more background in (whether a class, casual reading, etc) before taking the class in school.

Alcohol ingestion. I wish I had done more before MS-1.

 

[HogFan]

Histology is a good class to take before med school and will help out a lot with pathology.
Alcohol ingestion is also good but med school shoudn't stop you from having that.