Term 2…it was SUPPOSED to be easy.
…turns out, it was way harder than term 1, no longer in terms of adjusting but straight-up coursework and material covered. The first few weeks we only had Bioethics and CPM, so pretty much nothing spectacularly difficult there. We learned a few interesting details that weren’t 100% common sense and it was definitely interesting to think about things differently…or rather, from a different perspective and culture and talk about how that may affect one’s opinion on ethics. Otherwise though, it felt like a little step backwards from “medical school studying”. But just when we got used to the new slower pace, BIOE and CPM finals hit and we were full speed in Neuroscience, Physiology and Genetics. O-M-G.
It was like day 1 of term 1 all over. Well…not really. But it was definitely a faster gear than our first two weeks. Because most of it was a blur, term 2 that is, I’m just going to say, it was difficult, because we covered SOOOO much content in so little time and we had something on examsoft almost every 3 weeks if not less. Speaking of which. Unified 1…and Unified 1.2. Without ranting on the software we know as Examsoft, it didn’t allow us to take our first Unified exam as scheduled and created a fiasco Term 2 Spring 2014 know as Unified 1 part 1 and Unified 1 part 2. Most people who were able to take the exam the first time ended up having to re-sit the exam with the entire class a week later because the initial exam was voided. Yes it was absolutely annoying and ridiculous as a student having to deal with it but the school handled it somewhat well and appropriate changes to the exam policy were made to accommodate for problems with downloading exams immediately prior to the exam start time.
Genetics was only the first half of the term and wasn’t bad.
Immunology took over for the second half and was a bit more challenging just because it was an all-or-nothing course in terms of understanding. Lots of puzzle pieces as Stanley put it. I found drawing out literally a “big picture” helped understand how the parts fit in together. Also, look up Cells Acting Badly on Youtube. They were made by a student from SGU. And I’ll attach a few “concept maps” I made and maybe it can help you when you get to it.
Neuroscience. Mostly anatomy for the first 3 weeks and then clinical applications of all the neuroanatomy you know. I didn’t think it was super difficult content wise but it was A LOT of material, which made it difficult. Try pre-reading or make sure you keep up with the material. It adds up quickly. Same goes for physiology.
Physiology is definitely interesting and about the same difficulty as Neuro…at least for me but I visualize things better so I liked physio a bit more. Don’t go crazy with the textbooks on this one. BRS and class notes/essentials were enough to understand and do well. It was just a matter of learning it all. Like I said, Term 2 was a bit of a blur because it went so fast but if I remember anymore, I’ll make edits to this on my plane ride back to NJ.
Oh…and the only real text book you’ll need is the Neuro Atlas. The rest of the material are pretty well covered in the lecture notes, essential notes and in class resources. The books have questions which I used but I didn’t feel the other textbooks were 100% necessary.
