MS I Overview:
Your approximately 10 month first year of medical school will be broken up into smaller blocks (not semester style), during which time you will take particular courses, although a few courses run through multiple blocks. What follows this is a brief description of what each block & course comprises. Our goal is to simply give you an idea of what to expect, as well as a few pieces of advice on how to succeed, regarding both grades in learning how to be a competent physician. Make sure you also check out the advice section on the 12-PAC website! Hope this helps!
Block A: Profession of Medicine – 3 weeks
*BOOKS (for POM & PD)
Mosby’s Guide to Physical Examination by Seidel, Ball, Dains, & Benedict
*COURSE SETUP:: M-F 8-5. Includes lectures, small group time, student
presentations, physical exam practice, & completing compliance standards (you will be certified in Basic Life Support & you will be fitted for a TB mask).
*GRADING: 1 Quiz, 1 Test, 2 Presentations, Attendance
*COURSE INFO:
This is where it all begins! This course, which is affectionately referred to as‘POM’ (you will see there arelots of acronyms in medicine… why say posterior inferior cerebellar artery when you can say PICA?)has several main goals.
First, it is meant to give you a chance to get to know each other, so try & take advantage of the PAC events and group activities. Remember: this course represents the lightest amount of work so take advantage of this opportunity to attend the PAC events in order to become further acquainted with your classmates as well as our class & the Tampa area. You will be have 1 quiz and 1 test on the material taught during POM, & the course does count towards your grade point average, so do take it seriously.
Second, you will start to learn a little basic science,however, everything you learn during POM will be taught to you again during the course of the year. You will learn about four common diseases & will work on presentations with your POM group that will be part of your grade.
Third, you will see how medicine changes over time and it is often emphasized how being a doctor involves lifelong learning. For example, when a 60year old doctor was in medical school, not only did MRIs not exist, CTs did not exist either, yet this 60 year old doctor must know how to read such images as well as a 35 year old in his or her same specialty. Material will be presented regarding how medicine changes over time by examininghow four diseases were perceived & what treatments were used in the decade of the eighties & how it is today.
Fourth, you will also get some instruction in evidence-based medicine, ethics, & study skills. All three of these topics are intended to provide a foundation for learning & practicing medicine in school & beyond. “EBM” is designed to introduce you into how to research medical topics, including how to do literature searches. You will have a mini-quiz about searching for topics so make sure you pay attention! You will be using these techniques to look up information (since it is absolutely impossible to know everything about everything in medicine) for the rest of your career. And introduction to ethics and humanities are provided just to get you thinking about these foundational aspects of medicine. A selected group of you will be writing the oath you get to take at White Coat Ceremony, which will be held at the end of POM
Fifth, you will be introduced to the physical examination (however, you do NOT
need to go buy a stethoscope at this point although you may find one to be helpful; they provide stethoscopes for use at sessions in exchange for your car keys).We do advise that at this point you buy the book Mosby’s Guide to Physical Examination book by Seidel, Ball, Dains, & Benedict; you will need it for the physical diagnosis course given throughout the rest of the first year as well as second year. Since this course is given during the second year as well, your big sibling may be reluctant to let you borrow this book, so you may just need to buy it from the bookstore. You will have lectures with Dr. Wallach- make sure you read ahead because he loves to call on people to answer questions! And you will also have hands-on experience during 3 PD skills sessions covering three major exams: abdominal, cardiac, & lungs. During the sessions, you will have 1-on-1 time with a standardized patient and a preceptor & you will rotate through 6 patients. Enjoy & make the best of this opportunity as it is some of the most personalized PD skills practice you will get during your first year.
Block B1: Biochemistry,Ethics/Humanities & PD – 10 weeks
*BLOCK SETUP: Schedule varies. It’s usually M-F 8-3 (sometimes until 12 on F). These hours will be filled with lectures for Molecular Medicine, Ethics & Humanities, & PD. Note: when you have a Clinical Correlation for Biochem, dress up & be in attendance.
- Molecular, Cellular, and Genetic Basis of Medicine
* BOOKS:
*Book recommended by faculty that some people found useful: Histology: A Text and Atlas by Ross et all. , Lippincott’s Illustrated Review of Biochemistry by Champe & Harvey
*Books recommended by faculty that no one found useful & just because they tell you it is required, it is most certainly not, i.e. these are very expensive paperweights: Textbook of Biochemistry 5th Edition by T.M. Devlin, Wiley-Liss, Lippincott Human Molecular Genetics 3 by T. Strachan & A.P. Read, Garland Science
*Some teachers use pictures in their Powerpoint slides from: Biochemistry 5th Edition by Berg, Tymoczko, & Stryer
**Any sources you have from undergraduate or graduate studies would probably be sufficient for looking up more difficult concepts or for referencing a topic.
Despite everyone calling this class “Biochem”, it really is more than that. During this course you will coverbiochemistry, molecular genetics, cell biology, & histology of basic tissues. While having taken a biochemistry course as an undergraduate may be advantageous, do not worry if you did not. One common theme you will see during this block is that it is not necessary to memorize entire pathways but rather what is the rate-limiting step in a pathway, & which enzyme catalyzes that reaction. Lectures will also focus on making this material clinically relevant, for example, by covering a case where the patient is missing a certain enzyme. Each lecture will typically have a case that correlates with the material- learning about the disease/condition associated with each topic to ensure your understanding & prepare for the test will be very advantageous.
For molecular genetics you will learn about DNA, RNA, & many of their little buddies (regulatory proteins). You will also learn about the various inheritance patterns that occur with many of the diseases you will be discussing in the biochemistry & cell biology lectures.
The other component of this class is to start on the histology of the four basic tissue types: muscle, neuronal, connective, epithelial. Histology is basically microscopic anatomy, which means you will learn how to recognize tissues under the microscope. Drs. Muffly, Wiranowska, & Phelps are especially helpful during laboratory time, it would be in your interest to listen to their expertise.
You will also get to do a group presentation on particular disease related to the material during this block. The groups are chosen at random & are paired with preset diseases and dates. It is beneficial to pay attention to these presentations as the material presented by your classmates is testable. It may be helpful to have each group submit a short summary to the class to facilitate studying this material.
- Ethics and Humanities
*BOOKS:Ethics and Humanities Supplement (purchase from ProCopy)
On Doctoring (given to you for free at the White Coat Ceremony)
These are two entirely separate courses that combine only for grading purposes. The basis of these courses is to read something & then engage in discussion with a faculty member about the assignment. For Ethics, Dr. Walker and his colleagues will present various ethical issues that doctors face today. For some topics, there is a clear-cut answer (i.e. you may NEVER have sex with your patient, especially if you become a forensic pathologist…), while for others, the solution is more esotericthe goal is to simply make you ruminate about the ethical theme. For the tests, you should be familiar with the presented court cases the precedents they established as well as knowing about the hierarchy of ethical responsibilities in the process of making decisions about patients. This is mostly a class to get you to start thinking about how you would conduct yourself in difficult ethical dilemmas. Make sure you learn what the professor defines as the correct answer to each of the presented problems for testing purposes.
During, humanities you will read various pieces of literature & attend lectures by Dr.Nixon, who will elucidate their meanings. Dr. Nixon might be perceived as eccentric and trying to decode her emails and test questions may frustrate you, but she is a nice lady who genuinely wants to introduce the arts into our lives, so enjoy it! Field trips, movies, papers, and pop quizzes are in the mix for this class. The exams for humanities are take-home, open book and with a randomly-assigned classmate and are very straightforward and manageable.
- Physical Diagnosis (PD)
Physical Diagnosis is where you will begin to learn some of the clinical skills associated with the examination of patients. This class runs throughout the entire first two years of medical school, although you are given a separate grade for each year. The first year course is run by Dr. Coris, a family medicine doctor who specializes in sports medicine, with the aid of Ms. Stephanie Peters, his assistant. During B1 you will actually get lectures on topics that are fairly intuitive (i.e. do not be racist, be respectful to your patients, donot have sex with them… they really emphasize that one…). However, the rest of the year you will be expected to learn the material on your own mostly, via PowerPoint files. However, during B1, you will have PD lectures each Wednesday that will introduce you to this important subject. Look for more regarding PD later…
Block B2: Anatomy and Physiology
*SCHEDULE: M & W 8-5, T 1-5 , R & F 8-12. LCE times: T 8-12, R & F 1-5.
B2 is feasibly the most challenging block of the first year curriculum, and there is no way around the fact that there is a lot of material to learn (some have described it as trying to drink water out of a fire hose). Stay on top of the lecture material as it builds quickly. Don’t be afraid to go & ask the professors for help… they are more than willing to advise you on study technique & answer questions.
You will have to juggle anatomy, anatomy lab, physiology, imaging, PD lectures (online), Colloquium, & LCE. Additionally, you will have Joint Cases that incorporate anatomy, physiology, & PD. You will have an online quiz due the morning of the Joint Case. Attendance at Joint Case is mandatory & you must dress professionally & wear your white coat. You will rotate through a lecture on the anatomy, physiology, & imaging of the case topic, a lecture on the PD findings, & actual PD stations where you will examine patients that have the condition discussed. You will ask the patients questions & examine them so come prepared.
- Anatomy
*BOOKS & EQUIPMENT: You need more books for this course than probably any other. There are a ton of resources with textbooks, review books, and online resources so find out what you like and what works for you.
According to Professors:
- Required Books:
Clinically Oriented Anatomy, 5th Edition, Moore and Dalley (called Big Moore)
Grant’s Dissector, 13th Edition, Tank
Atlas of Clinical Gross Anatomy, Moses et.al. , 1st Edition
The Developing Human 7th edition , Moore and Persaud
Histology, A Text and Atlas, 4th Edition, Ross, et al.
Clinical Applications of Human Anatomy 1st edition Nolan
According to the class of 2009:
- Most Recommended (Almost have to have):
An atlas (Netter’s is probably more popular, Grant’s has some text with it) Grant’s Dissector (read before the lab, has lots of important information)
Either Big or Mini Moore Clinically Oriented Anatomy (some said Big Moore is an easier read, but more pages, while Mini Moore is more concise)
Clinical Applications by Nolan (a few of the practical questions are word for word from this book, and you need it for Applied Anatomy)
- Some Recommended:
Histology textbook (some said that the slides provided were sufficient)
Netter’s Flashcards (most of the same pictures as Netter’s)
BRS Anatomy (good for practice questions)
High Yield Embryo (or BRS Embryo) (notes are mostly pictures, so text helps)
Rohan Atlas (real life pictures of cadavers that are helpful for the practical)
- Online Resources:
Michigan:
Medical Mnemonics:
Anatomy Lab Equipment:
- General advice:
Need a labcoat, scrubs, closed toe shoes, gloves (double gloving to keep your hands from smelling, or if one glove rips), dissection kit (about 2 per group which you can split the cost of), Grant’s Dissector to keep in lab (1 per group), an atlas to keep in the lab (the faculty had some that we could use last year). Some groups had lockers to keep their materials in and some kept them in the lab. Make sure you label books if they are yours & hide your equipment because they tend to get borrowed and disappear.
Here, at USF, Gross Anatomy is an inclusive course that includes not only gross anatomy, but histology, cross-sectional anatomy,embryology as well. That means that each exam will have components of all topics, although the majority will be gross anatomy. There are two main components to anatomy: lectures & labs, and there are two types of labs: gross dissection & histology.
Your lectures will be a good introduction to what you will see in lab. You will also learn about how each of the systems developed embryologically, which can contribute to your understanding of why structures are where they are. Take advantage of online practice quizzes as they can help.
We also had Applied Anatomy sessions & Computer-Based Learning sessions. During “APA” we completed the book written by Dr. Nolan under his supervision. The questions helped to categorize & clinically apply material learned in lecture. “CBLA” consisted of going over cross-sections, Acland videos, & Primal pictures. Do not blow this off as questions from these sessions do appear on tests!
Gross lab is the big enchilada; you willhelp dissect a human cadaver. Following Grant’s Dissector, you will dissect your cadaver in the same order that you are lectured on these regions in class. Please show these cadavers the respect they deserve; many of us learned best from them & it is truly a privilege to cut up someone’s husband, wife, mother, brother, lover, etc. The faculty demand proper behavior in the cadaver lab, and so should you. You will share a cadaver with a predetermined group; 6-7 people will share each cadaver but you will be split into teams of 3-4 and alternate dissection periods. Each dissection period, one lucky group will be called upon to record a video of that day’s dissection so the other group can know what the dissection covered.
Dissection periods are a good time to ask questions from a professor but you will need to spend time in cadaver lab or with a good atlas in order to grasp all the material. Keep in mind that which each cadaver there is anatomic variation. These are slight variations in an individual’s anatomy that, in a normal person may not be significant, but could be very important if that person needed surgery.Your practicals will consist of many questions from the cadavers so make sure to look at other cadavers besides your own. Some students felt that it was rude to do this during assigned dissection time, & some also felt like it was rude to expect guided tours of cadavers by the people in that group. It is crucial and beneficial to help each other out but just keep in mind that the study relationships should be multi-directional. However, the faculty tends to be extremely fair, and almost always test the normal anatomy and not the variants. You will have a list of structures you will be responsible for knowing, so know them from every angle possible. As Dr. Cameron will stress, you name the artery by where it goes, not where it originates. Really take the time to look at structures & their spatial relationships as this is your only opportunity to learn like this. Additionally, we had to fill out a Pathology Report detailing what we found in the cadaver. Everyone in the group should work on this as you go as it does go towards your grade.
Histology lab is where you look at slides of the organs you are grossly dissecting. Do not neglect this material, as it does show up on the practical in proportion to how much material there is presented. You will be provided with a lab manual to direct you in which slides you are responsible for. During the lab sessions the faculty will be there to answer any questions you have, however, you can look at your slides whenever you want since you will have keys and access to your microscopes and slides (they are stored in your histology lab desks). Be able to identify the organ the slide comes from as well as the cells or structures & what they do.