Second Semester - Anatomy

[USRelation]

I'm a relative of one of the current Second Semester students and wanted to check in on the quality of the anatomy professors (both lecture and lab) this semester. I understand both professors are new this semester and that the test scores have been lower than normal.

On the recent Lab exam...instead of using some fresher body parts as the professor said they would do...they used a number of dried out body parts which made the blood vessels, nerves, muscles, etc virtually impossible to identify.

For the students I have met, I know the lower test scores are not from lack of effort. They did very well first semester...and all they do is go to class, study and spend time in the lab...they are not slackers.

Is the administration at Ross aware of the lower scores and the concerns about the quality of the teaching/testing? Any comments/feedback would be appreciated. Thanks,

USRelation

[razorback831]

the test wasn't that bad. a couple of the parts they tagged were a little sketchy-at-best, but all in all, it was pretty fair. they posted the range today and the high was 97 and the low was 23. with somebody making a 97, i'd say it was fair. we all had the same opportunities to learn the structures they tagged. some just did better than others.

[oc23]

On the recent Lab exam...instead of using some fresher body parts as the professor said they would do...they used a number of dried out body parts which made the blood vessels, nerves, muscles, etc virtually impossible to identify.

this problem is not unique to this semester alone, and it's not due to a bad prosector either. although the lab practical is in the afternoon, the professor starts tagging the bodies in the morning because it's actually a lot of work and is time-consuming. and when he's done, he cannot rewrap the bodies because that would mess up the tagging and placement of parts. that's why the bodies tend to be dry by the time of the actual practical exam. and unless the structures are EXTREMELY dry and poorly tagged/placed, it's not really a big problem if you know your stuff.

[singer]

My son is a current 2nd semester student. He did better his first semester then he did in college. He did very well on his first mimis except the anatomy. He also indicated the difficulty with the lab test that he hasn't received the marks back. He indicates that Dr. Boaz speaks very fast and that one professor spoke with such a heavy accent he was impossible to understabd. I couldn't understand why the mps on the first mini was 52.5 when it seems that more then 15% of the class had grades below those marks.

Obviously these are new teachers and hopefully the Dean is monitoring their performance. Unfortunately, there isn't anyone representing Ross on this forum to present the feelings of students and parents.

Hopefully, the students averages won't be dragged down by this one class.

[Linus]

I think the lab test was difficult but if you knew your material then you would have done well on the exam. This is why they have the MPS system so that students can miss quite a few and still get very decent grades. As for the anatomy mini I did not think it was that bad. Some students did not do well but many others did do well. I think alot of poeple were counting on the lab test to be easier than it was to make up for bad mini grades, but that plan backfired since the lab exam was difficult.
I do admit that the quesiton about the axillary nerve on the humerus was very unfair since we just went over that today, although Dr Martin says we were supposed to have dissected it the first week. Oh well, it is only one point.

[medNoir]

last semester, our first anatomy practical had a high of 100 and a low of 6. That's 6% to you and me. The next lowest was a 9 and another person got a 10.

I passed anatomy by blowing off its minis, so I could focus on the other subjects, then doing well on the practicals. A risky strategy maybe but I find myself on the edge alot anyway.

Bodies don't have to wait for the day-of to dry out. On the days leading up to the practicals, students tend to leave other people's bodies exposed overnight. Reflects their bathroom habits. Also, you can tug on parts only so much before they tear off. I was looking at shredded jerky by exam time, but I could still tell what they were.

[Linus]

My lab group had that problem. People would come into the lab at night to study and then leave the bodies uncovered, or destroyed nerves or vessels. Also the viscera from our table was removed and left at another table, and our body was left uncovered for an entire night. So the drying out of the bodies has little to do with the professors tagging them in the morning; it has to do with the inconsiderate students who study off other groups bodies and then leave the body uncovered overnight.

[zedpol]

Something else to remember is that the MPS doesn't mean anything. The only curve that matters is the one they do at the end when they add all the points together, the MPS on the minis is just a very general guide to how you are doing. Last semester our class did very poorly on the anatomy portion of the first mini, but our MPS was originally 54 (they eventually dropped it to 50). I asked Dr. Martin about it and he said he wanted to leave it at 54 to give people some motivation...i think his exact words were, "a kick in the pants" Even with a MPS of 50 something like 40% of our class failed...anyways the take home message is that it will all work out in the end.

[MitchDC]

By the way, the professors are NOT new. All of them are very experienced in teaching anatomy.

The periodic MPS scores, as students have said TONS of times, are only general guidelines to help students see where they stands.

Many students struggle on the first Anatomy Practical as its a new type of exam for them. Most pull it way up by the second (they spend a LOT more time in the lab).

-MitchDC

My son is a current 2nd semester student. He did better his first semester then he did in college. He did very well on his first mimis except the anatomy. He also indicated the difficulty with the lab test that he hasn't received the marks back. He indicates that Dr. Boaz speaks very fast and that one professor spoke with such a heavy accent he was impossible to understabd. I couldn't understand why the mps on the first mini was 52.5 when it seems that more then 15% of the class had grades below those marks.

Obviously these are new teachers and hopefully the Dean is monitoring their performance. Unfortunately, there isn't anyone representing Ross on this forum to present the feelings of students and parents.

Hopefully, the students averages won't be dragged down by this one class.

[ForceMD]

i have yet to even start my first semester not to mention Anatomy in the second semester. However, from what I have heard about Anatomy in medical school is that just learning how to study for it is itself something challenging to adjust to.

It isn't like what any of us are used to and that more than %50 of all the things you have to know come from independant learning and studying. And you are responsible to know everything, even if not covered in lab by the profs.

I would imagine in some cases, this might be what's playing into some of the less than desired test scores in the beginning. But, from what I understand, once you figure out what works best for you, everything just seems to fit well together and even the professors with thick accents begin to sound as clear as a nice set of Bose digital speakers. Good luck everyone.

[USRelation]

Thanks for all your responses. Just to clarify my original post regarding the "new" professors. I cannot comment on their levels of experience. However, I understand that the lab and lecture Anatomy professors for the current Second Semesters....did not teach Anatomy at Ross last semester. MitchDC, did you have a different Anatomy professor when you were second semester? Thanks,

USRelation

[Linus]

The professors are new as in new to the full time prosection, since the person who used to the prosections is gone, but they were professors in anatomy last semster.

[medNoir]

Anatomy was like trying to kill a million ants. You can get alot, but eventually you'll get tired and they'll keep comming.

Second semester was like trying to run up the down escalator.

Third semester is like trying to run up an avalanche,
and the last 50% of the boulders will roll down all at once.

[MDSomeday]

I took Bachelor's level Adv. Anat. at my school last semester. Tagging was done such that you could see the whole forearm if, say the ECRL was tagged. Is it the same way at Ross, or the region is mainly covered leaving only a small gao in the covering to show the small section of the region? The way I understood it, most med. schools opt for the later approach than how we did it a bachelor level.

[MitchDC]

No, that's rediculous. At Ross, you usually get to see the whole portion of the extremity to aid in your identification. They aren't trying to trick you.

MitchDC

[medic105]

To be honest with you all 18 students in the class scored above 90, that is better than most semesters. The problem is that a good majority of the students spent little time in the lab. I walked by the lab the week prior to practical and to my shick saw very few people on the lab. You cant learn anatomy from a book, you need to spend your time in the lab looking at the structures from different angles. I saw the exam after everyone took it and thought it was very fair, with the exception of about 6 or 7 poorly tagged specimans. There should be no reason, besides lack of effort, why anyone couldnt get an 80 raw or higher.

[LuckyLuciano]

Not always...at least not on this last practical exam.