Does anyone...

[ChronoTriggerMed]

Does anyone have the link to *******'s blogs? (something like http://blackpeople.***.******)... Thanks.

[julestx]

http://www.blackpeople.us/minority/index.php/caribbean_medical_school/2004/12/

[stateofequilibrium]

I've always thought it should be us.blackpeople

[aoliver0]

http://www.blackpeople.us/minority/index.php/caribbean_medical_school

[soums5384]

who found this blog??? its very straight forward, but kind of scares me. am i the only one who thinks this? by all means, i have to give ******* props for such honesty. why do you guys think the anatomy exam fail rates are so high? i'm not expecting to be spoon fed all the material (after all it is medical school), but the blog is making me wonder why people are failing. is it the faculty? what do you guys think?

[stateofequilibrium]

who found this blog??? its very straight forward, but kind of scares me. am i the only one who thinks this? by all means, i have to give ******* props for such honesty. why do you guys think the anatomy exam fail rates are so high? i'm not expecting to be spoon fed all the material (after all it is medical school), but the blog is making me wonder why people are failing. is it the faculty? what do you guys think?

If I could, I would look take the exams myself just to see what people are complaining about really. And while I'm supposedly "technically" a TA myself, most of the stuff I hear comes straight first from *******'s blog so I am unsure of what is rumor vs. truth.

In the previous semesters, embryology accounted for no more than 10 questions per exam, they just added histology to the mix so I have no idea how that is incorporated. Though I'm sure many previous people who had to take histo as a seperate class would've loved histo to only have been a small part of a larger course.

I am also not exactly sure what this "drama" with the benchmarks are as well. Benchmarks are a great source of information, but they are not the all-end all of information. A lot of test questions we had did not come from the benchmarks but incorporated an understanding of anatomy and relationships. Benchmarks were golden for clinical correlations though.

Though conversely, I've also been told that the anatomy exams are fair, and the embryo/histo questions were straightforward. So I'm not exactly sure unless I break into daddy's office and look at the old exams myself. The situation for next semester is unknown, so don't believe any rumors!

But also remember, it's a natural right for a student to whine. During our first semester, there was a huge firestorm about one question that asked, "what's lub dub?" and everyone was enraged about the question being "unfair."

[microphage]

who found this blog??? its very straight forward, but kind of scares me. am i the only one who thinks this? by all means, i have to give ******* props for such honesty. why do you guys think the anatomy exam fail rates are so high? i'm not expecting to be spoon fed all the material (after all it is medical school), but the blog is making me wonder why people are failing. is it the faculty? what do you guys think?

******* is a valuemd member. He used to post here a bit more. I honestly don't think that many people fail anatomy in the end. Here's a stat:

Last semester, from what I heard, only <5 people failed anatomy. Please correct me if I'm wrong(I haven't kept close track of the 1st semesters). And a semester previous to that, nobody failed anatomy.

[stateofequilibrium]

******* is a valuemd member. He used to post here a bit more. I honestly don't think that many people fail anatomy in the end. Here's a stat:

Last semester, from what I heard, only <5 people failed anatomy. Please correct me if I'm wrong(I haven't kept close track of the 1st semesters). And a semester previous to that, nobody failed anatomy.

Conversely, believe all rumors you hear about Physio! :-)

I don't know about last semester, not too many I believe. My semester, very few people failed (heck, if I passed that says something). And I heard something about the semester before no one failing.

[microphage]

Conversely, believe all rumors you hear about Physio! :-)

I don't know about last semester, not too many I believe. My semester, very few people failed (heck, if I passed that says something). And I heard something about the semester before no one failing.

oops.. yeah, I mean the one previous to SOE's, nobody failed. I ain't that good at math.

[teratos]

If people aren't failing at all, then the class is too easy. G

[stateofequilibrium]

If people aren't failing at all, then the class is too easy. G

Actually, I found the questions very similar in style to the NBMLE shelf if that says anything.

[teratos]

Actually, I found the questions very similar in style to the NBMLE shelf if that says anything.

Good. The Shelf exams are good for the professors, too. They see the scope of what the boards are testing in the various subjects. A good exam in med school has questions similar in style/content to those of the Shelf, which are supposed to be similar in style/content to the questions on the USMLE. I think Shelf questions are harder than the USMLE, but that is just me. G

[stateofequilibrium]

Truth be told, I wasn't sure about the wisdom of combining anatomy/embryo. Because I could get away with not studying embryo at all and still pass the class.. when I got to the shelf and it's embryo section, all I could answer were the one or two questions (out of thirty some embryo questions) about neural tubes.

[teratos]

Truth be told, I wasn't sure about the wisdom of combining anatomy/embryo. Because I could get away with not studying embryo at all and still pass the class.. when I got to the shelf and it's embryo section, all I could answer were the one or two questions (out of thirty some embryo questions) about neural tubes.

NP, usually not much Embryo on the boards. I guess neural tube stuff is important. G

[microphage]

Actually, I found the questions very similar in style to the NBMLE shelf if that says anything.


Its the NBME... u noobs.. :P

[microphage]

Truth be told, I wasn't sure about the wisdom of combining anatomy/embryo. Because I could get away with not studying embryo at all and still pass the class.. when I got to the shelf and it's embryo section, all I could answer were the one or two questions (out of thirty some embryo questions) about neural tubes.

I had an embryo class separate.. and I could only answer 4 of the NBME questions correctly if my life depended on it.

[stateofequilibrium]

I had an embryo class separate.. and I could only answer 4 of the NBME questions correctly if my life depended on it.

Hey, that's double what I could answer. Oh, and legs and feet. Man, I was so wasted during that last week of school..

I already have this checklist going of things I need to review before boards:

1) embryo
2) legs and feet
3) biostats (and learning how to add and divide first helps too, am I too old to go back to the first grade?)

[microphage]

Hey, that's double what I could answer. Oh, and legs and feet. Man, I was so wasted during that last week of school..

I already have this checklist going of things I need to review before boards:

1) embryo
2) legs and feet
3) biostats (and learning how to add and divide first helps too, am I too old to go back to the first grade?)


i wouldn't worry about the first two...

[teratos]

Hey, that's double what I could answer. Oh, and legs and feet. Man, I was so wasted during that last week of school..

I already have this checklist going of things I need to review before boards:

1) embryo
2) legs and feet
3) biostats (and learning how to add and divide first helps too, am I too old to go back to the first grade?)

Ok, so it seems to me you have a list of some of the lowest-yield topics one could possibly come up with. You should review these topics throughly once you have memorized everything else you ever learned. G

[stateofequilibrium]

But back onto topic: As long as you buckle down, try everything as hard as you can, learn to sleep at your desk (a pillow on top of your notes does wonders for comfort), and post continuously on valuemd.. you'll do fine regardless of "drama."

[microphage]

But back onto topic: As long as you buckle down, try everything as hard as you can, learn to sleep at your desk (a pillow on top of your notes does wonders for comfort), and post continuously on valuemd.. you'll do fine regardless of "drama."


yeah, I haven't seen anyone with over 500 posts fail any classes at AUC.

[ChanceCount]

I haven't seen anything that is unfair. For the first two exams, the professors were pretty clear about what they wanted us to study. Certainly for the second exam it was made very clear that the professor notes would be the priority. I didn't even go through all of the benchmarks.

This section has been the most disorganized because of the new professor, but he has said more than once what should be studied.

[stateofequilibrium]

I haven't seen anything that is unfair. For the first two exams, the professors were pretty clear about what they wanted us to study. Certainly for the second exam it was made very clear that the professor notes would be the priority. I didn't even go through all of the benchmarks.

This section has been the most disorganized because of the new professor, but he has said more than once what should be studied.

Yes, as it has been in previous semesters. The anatomy profs will always usually tell you what to emphasize for their exams, and study the beejesus out of it. It's also fun to drink right before an exam too!

[stateofequilibrium]

Lesson learned? Don't believe everything you read, it's from ONE person's perspective. There are many people that do very well in anatomy and you can too. All it takes is a lot of work and as little screwing around as possible, unless it involves the fairer sex.

[FOID]

i agree with everyone else. don't let one person discourage you. the classes are ok. if you go to class, study, review, read ahead, and just get caught up, you'll do fine.

the professors here do care. if you have a problem, go up to them or to their office hours and they'll explain everything to you. they won't spoon feed you the information but they make sure you know the material if you do not understand it.

[Lil786]

How many times a week do we have anatomy lab? What about histo?

[stateofequilibrium]

How many times a week do we have anatomy lab? What about histo?

Standard is 5 days a week. But right now, for the new incoming classes, we do not know. The head honcho, Dr. L is leaving so it'll be up to the new guy whoever that is to make the calls.

[stateofequilibrium]

I am not sure about histo though, it was just a recent thing this semester adding histo to anatomy since I believe one of the histo profs is retiring and the other one is having a class to himself called Cell Bio.

I've been staying away from *******'s blog for a while as he seems to have gotten into a pissing match with some people. And while it's a good source of information, I would also like to point out that it's only ONE person's opinion. On VMD you're hearing from a lot of people that have made it through or going through the process with positive outlooks.

Yes, it's the Caribbean. Don't expect it to be like the US, but rest assured most people do care about giving you a great education. Tomorrow a group of us are leaving for New York to present our RESEARCH at a Clinical Conference.. for two years AUC has taken home TOP prize for clinical anatomy beating out Mayo, Harvard and similar ilk which should tell you something.

So bottom line: DON'T WORRY! I'm sure the new prof will be great. And for those in the current semester, be glad you don't have to take histo as a course on its own with physio. One is conceptually hard, and the other is a mountain of data that makes you think you were responsible for burning down the rain forest. buckle down, study hard and see ya next semester!

[soums5384]

thanks you guys. for a minute there i was getting a little bit worried, but i feel a lot better now after reading all the replies. one more question...these exams that we are talking about, are we just tested on lecture material and lab material?

[stateofequilibrium]

thanks you guys. for a minute there i was getting a little bit worried, but i feel a lot better now after reading all the replies. one more question...these exams that we are talking about, are we just tested on lecture material and lab material?

Those and benchmarks are pretty much all you should see. Of course they will hardly be straight out forward questions. They will usually be secondary or tertiary questions, meaning there is a symptom or given a clinical scenario and then asks you the question about it forcing you to think (unfortunately). Lab practical is somewhat straightforward, though profs like asking variations to make sure you studied in lab instead of just reading from picture perfect books.

[FOID]

thanks you guys. for a minute there i was getting a little bit worried, but i feel a lot better now after reading all the replies. one more question...these exams that we are talking about, are we just tested on lecture material and lab material?

sometimes, things are NOT EXACTLY from lecture material. you have the use the information that is given out in the notes (or lecture), think about it, and answer the questions.

[stateofequilibrium]

sometimes, things are NOT EXACTLY from lecture material. you have the use the information that is given out in the notes (or lecture), think about it, and answer the questions.

I could swear I just said that sucker.

[microphage]

Those and benchmarks are pretty much all you should see. Of course they will hardly be straight out forward questions. They will usually be secondary or tertiary questions, meaning there is a symptom or given a clinical scenario and then asks you the question about it forcing you to think (unfortunately). Lab practical is somewhat straightforward, though profs like asking variations to make sure you studied in lab instead of just reading from picture perfect books.

Again, lots of people have gone through it and they all survived. In the end, you only have to worry about one person, yourself. If I'm a betting man, I'd bet on myself anyday.

[microphage]

I could swear I just said that sucker.

Pipe down. Newbies need help.

One more thing, don't ever blow off anatomy lab, you'll be sorry if you did

[stateofequilibrium]

Pipe down. Newbies need help.

One more thing, don't ever blow off anatomy lab, you'll be sorry if you did

Yes, it's also advisable that you don't just watch, but dissect as much as possible your self. You actually learn by doing.

[microphage]

Yes, it's also advisable that you don't just watch, but dissect as much as possible you're self. You actually learn by doing.

You also learn by reading ahead of time. <===easier said than done

[stateofequilibrium]

You also learn by reading ahead of time. <===easier said than done

LOL. Just cut your VMD time, your Quake time, your Simpsons break, your luxurious lobster dinner time, and you'll have time.