Which subject is harder? Physiology or Biochemistry

[shreypete]

I was just wondering which subject is harder? How do you approach each subject individually? I heard a lot of medical students saying that Physiology is one of the subjects that actually makes sense in medical school? Is this true? And how clinically relevant are these subjects?

Thanks...

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[radslooking]

I was just wondering which subject is harder? How do you approach each subject individually? I heard a lot of medical students saying that Physiology is one of the subjects that actually makes sense in medical school? Is this true? And how clinically relevant are these subjects?

Thanks...

i liked physiology better, but probably did better at biochem because it is more cut and dry. physiology to me is life. dynamic, changing, relevant. biochem is cut and dry, it either is or isn't. it's somewhat relevant, not nearly as much as

simply put: phys: concepts
biochem: details.

I don't know a whole lot about approaching the two, except for phys i think it helps maybe to draw pictures and visualize things. perhaps think about scenarios in your own mind what happens when cardiac return lessens, or increases, or what happens during exercise, and what compensatory mechanisms there are. physiology is mainly about action-reaction. the body responds to stress and maintains homeostasis with multivariate mechanisms. And they change depending on the situation.

biochem is mostly understanding details...so not exactly sure what strategies i'd tell you.

 

[SpinnerOfTruth]

It depends on the person.

 

[Mobius1985]

I was just wondering which subject is harder? How do you approach each subject individually? I heard a lot of medical students saying that Physiology is one of the subjects that actually makes sense in medical school? Is this true? And how clinically relevant are these subjects?

Thanks...

Both subjects are difficult, but you'll find both are clinically relevant. Biochem is a lot of memorizing. Physiology requires understanding of cause and effect, and once you "get it," everything makes sense. You need the biochem to understand pharmacology, errors of metabolism, some genetic syndromes, many disease processes, etc.

 

[michaelrack]

Which is harder depends on the person studying it. In my opinion, physiology is more important for the average practicing physician to understand well. There are often times I wish I knew more about physiology; I rarely feel that way about biochem.

 

[asthenia]

Physiology has the benefit of making sense on a more basic level than biochemistry for most people, at least in my opinion. You can put everything together and see applications of the material in everyday life, outside of a clinical area more so than biochemistry.

 

[Uegis]

Definitely physiology. Biochem is just memorization, though it is A LOT of memorizing. But physiology has concepts you must grasp and understand, then apply it. Not the easiest. Know your physio well. I had tons of it on my Step I

 

[Dedikated2liftn]

IMO it really depends on what type of science you prefer--quantitative or qualitative. For me, phys is about the most quantitative class that you're gonna see in med school (so if you like physics, inorganic chem, or pchem..phys probably won't be bad at all). However, if you're like me, and prefer the qualitative stuff, biochem will probably be the easier of the two.

 

[The Angriest Bird]

For me and many of my classmates:

Physiology is harder than biochemistry when you learn them for the first time. But when it comes to Step 1 prep, Biochemistry is significantly harder to review. The reason is probably that all second year curriculums reinforce your knowledge on physiology, but not so much on biochemistry.

 

[DocPsychosis]

simply put:
phys: concepts
biochem: details.

qft

Phizzy is way, way easier for me, since I'm good at concepts and terrible at rote memorization

 

[Blesbok]

qft

Phizzy is way, way easier for me, since I'm good at concepts and terrible at rote memorization

.

I could barely study for phys and do well. This was not true for biochem. It probably helped that I was a chem major and we had to take 3 physics and 4 calc classes for undergrad and probably hurt that i had very few upper level bio courses that would have helped in biochem.

 

[silas2642]

I was just wondering which subject is harder? How do you approach each subject individually? I heard a lot of medical students saying that Physiology is one of the subjects that actually makes sense in medical school? Is this true? And how clinically relevant are these subjects?

Thanks...

I thought that physiology was a lot easier because it was way more relevant. Biochemistry was so dry-- just pathway after pathway and what goes wrong if a pathway doesn't work.

 

[Monica Lewinsky]

Physiology is mostly logic so you can reason through almost every problem. Learning basic concepts is so much easier than memorizing minutia.

 

[Slide]

Phys = applying concepts
Biochem = rote memorization

As everyone has also said, a lot of the stuff you do second year reinforces physiology. Whenever I volunteer at the local clinic I always see something unique that has a strong relation to physiology (just last week I saw a SLE pt that had a lot of endocrine problems). I think the only time I've used biochem in a clinical setting was when I was asked how statins worked. Even then, I'm sure that's something covered again in pharm.

But back to the main point. I say physiology is easier simply because you can ration it out and there's a rhyme and reason for just about everything. For biochem it's minutae you probably won't remember (or need) and the names for all the enzymes and proteins just sound dumb (MAP kinase, JAK, intron, promoter...all sounds so profound doesn't it...).

 

[LiLroaa MC]

i can't think twice it's biochemistry for sure!!!
am having hard times but am trying to over come that =)