sehou2014 Posted January 15, 2015 Share Posted January 15, 2015 Hi all, I'm using the Netter's flash cards to brush up and pre-study anatomy before the PA program starts. I remember people said ~50% of the materials will be go through in PA school (please correct me if I'm not right). Could anyone let me know which parts/aspects are relatively more important? Thanks! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Administrator rev ronin Posted January 15, 2015 Administrator Share Posted January 15, 2015 If you're going to study anatomy, just hit a little bit of everything. Don't delve deep on muscles of the hands and feet. Know the big bits from every system: Major blood vessels, cranial nerves, parts of a nephron, that sort of thing. Memorizing minutae won't help you, but do have a good, generalized, current recollection of the major parts of every system. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sehou2014 Posted January 15, 2015 Author Share Posted January 15, 2015 If you're going to study anatomy, just hit a little bit of everything. Don't delve deep on muscles of the hands and feet. Know the big bits from every system: Major blood vessels, cranial nerves, parts of a nephron, that sort of thing. Memorizing minutae won't help you, but do have a good, generalized, current recollection of the major parts of every system. Thank you rev ronin! You just saved me from the headache of memorizing muscles of heads and feet. BTW, should I pre-study pharmacology in the same way? Have a big picture of each chapter? Please let me know. Much appreciated! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CorpsmanUP Posted January 15, 2015 Share Posted January 15, 2015 Since every school teaches anatomy differently and focuses on different things I would skip the anatomy and do physiology instead. Costanzo's Physiology is the best $35 bucks you can spend in my opinion. More in depth than Patho made simple, more approachable than Guyton & Hall. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sehou2014 Posted January 15, 2015 Author Share Posted January 15, 2015 Since every school teaches anatomy differently and focuses on different things I would skip the anatomy and do physiology instead. Costanzo's Physiology is the best $35 bucks you can spend in my opinion. More in depth than Patho made simple, more approachable than Guyton & Hall. Thanks! Just wondering why every school focuses on different things on anatomy? Don't they need to prepare their students for PANCE in the future? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cbrsmurf Posted January 15, 2015 Share Posted January 15, 2015 IIRC, the PANCE doesn't quiz you on anatomy, per se. But you have to have a reasonable understanding of anatomy to understand physiology and pathologies. The only tip I can provide is that when I was at the gym, I would associate that particular exercise I was doing with the anatomy/motion and that would help me memorize it. Massive gains both physically and intellectually, bro. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JamBra0 Posted January 16, 2015 Share Posted January 16, 2015 I'm actually trying to do some studying before I start my program also. Thank you. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
discogenic Posted January 16, 2015 Share Posted January 16, 2015 anatomyguy.com has good videos, including some introductory-type stuff. Worth watching. I agree with Rev Ronin. Stay basic, big picture, major structures. It may be worth looking at some xrays of basic bony structures as well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Administrator rev ronin Posted January 16, 2015 Administrator Share Posted January 16, 2015 Pharmacology is a different beast. I'm really not sure I would spend any specific effort on pharmacology before school... Anatomy and physiology are both more universal and more foundational. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sehou2014 Posted January 16, 2015 Author Share Posted January 16, 2015 I'm actually trying to do some studying before I start my program also. Thank you. We are on the same boat Jambra0. Sounds like we are gonna ace all the subjects in PA school lol Good luck to both of us Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sehou2014 Posted January 16, 2015 Author Share Posted January 16, 2015 Pharmacology is a different beast. I'm really not sure I would spend any specific effort on pharmacology before school... Anatomy and physiology are both more universal and more foundational. So.... better not touch pharmacology before school? Any suggestion for physiology, or even more subjects, please? Really really appreciated! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Administrator rev ronin Posted January 16, 2015 Administrator Share Posted January 16, 2015 So.... better not touch pharmacology before school? Any suggestion for physiology, or even more subjects, please? Really really appreciated! Anatomy, physiology, medical terminology.... those are three really good areas. From my perspective, it's not as important that you cover specific things, as that you get in the habit OF studying, so it's not something new on day one. The actual content you will be studying is not as important--there's far too much in PA school for anyone to master it all. Everything you need to know WILL be pointed out to you (although not necessarily lectured on) during class, so your biggest task is not to anticipate what they will teach you in school, but to get your brain tooled up to accept and process LOTS of new medical knowledge each day. If you want to go beyond that, try reading appropriate literature, like House of God. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sehou2014 Posted January 16, 2015 Author Share Posted January 16, 2015 Anatomy, physiology, medical terminology.... those are three really good areas. From my perspective, it's not as important that you cover specific things, as that you get in the habit OF studying, so it's not something new on day one. The actual content you will be studying is not as important--there's far too much in PA school for anyone to master it all. Everything you need to know WILL be pointed out to you (although not necessarily lectured on) during class, so your biggest task is not to anticipate what they will teach you in school, but to get your brain tooled up to accept and process LOTS of new medical knowledge each day. If you want to go beyond that, try reading appropriate literature, like House of God. Got it! BTW, I enjoyed House of God : ) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
db_pavnp Posted January 16, 2015 Share Posted January 16, 2015 If you have a year plus before your program, I do feel that, with proper discipline, you can make a huge dent in the material that will be covered in any PA program. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dchampigny Posted January 16, 2015 Share Posted January 16, 2015 This is a recipe for burnout, IMO. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Administrator rev ronin Posted January 16, 2015 Administrator Share Posted January 16, 2015 This is a recipe for burnout, IMO. Actually, it's an antidote to burnout. The idea behind my philosophy is rooted in the Tortoise vs. the Hare: a consistent ability to daily absorb a large amount (6+ hours of lecture, plus reading) of medical information for 5 days in a row without any appreciable time to decompress is the most important skill to avoid burnout OR failure in PA school. Better still, it can be trained, like most other endurance skills, and so you don't have to wait until Day One of PA school to start working on it. True, no one arrives at PA school without some aptitude in medical learning, but it is genuinely hard to overstate the relentless onslaught of new information hour by hour, day by day, and week by week that is didactic year. There are plenty of students who don't take the proactive approach yet still pass, but I cannot overstate how valuable it is to have practiced the skill of drinking from the proverbial fire hose. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sehou2014 Posted January 17, 2015 Author Share Posted January 17, 2015 If you have a year plus before your program, I do feel that, with proper discipline, you can make a huge dent in the material that will be covered in any PA program. Could you be more specified please? Thanks! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sehou2014 Posted January 17, 2015 Author Share Posted January 17, 2015 Actually, it's an antidote to burnout. The idea behind my philosophy is rooted in the Tortoise vs. the Hare: a consistent ability to daily absorb a large amount (6+ hours of lecture, plus reading) of medical information for 5 days in a row without any appreciable time to decompress is the most important skill to avoid burnout OR failure in PA school. Better still, it can be trained, like most other endurance skills, and so you don't have to wait until Day One of PA school to start working on it. True, no one arrives at PA school without some aptitude in medical learning, but it is genuinely hard to overstate the relentless onslaught of new information hour by hour, day by day, and week by week that is didactic year. There are plenty of students who don't take the proactive approach yet still pass, but I cannot overstate how valuable it is to have practiced the skill of drinking from the proverbial fire hose. Also it can be a potential life saver for new moms juggling between school and baby. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maynard Posted January 17, 2015 Share Posted January 17, 2015 Pharmacology is a different beast. I'm really not sure I would spend any specific effort on pharmacology before school... Anatomy and physiology are both more universal and more foundational. Another approach would be to focus your physiology studies on the processes that underlie drug actions: adrenergic/cholinergic receptors, clotting pathways, etc. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted January 21, 2015 Share Posted January 21, 2015 What? Pre-study? No, stop right now and enjoy life, because you won't have any for the next 2-2.5 years!!! You have NO WAY of knowing what to study, how to study, what is important vs less important. You will learn stuff that won't even help you in school or real life this way. Just...chill...! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Administrator rev ronin Posted January 21, 2015 Administrator Share Posted January 21, 2015 What? Pre-study? No, stop right now and enjoy life, because you won't have any for the next 2-2.5 years!!! You have NO WAY of knowing what to study, how to study, what is important vs less important. You will learn stuff that won't even help you in school or real life this way. Just...chill...! I knew one of these would show up sooner or later. Unless you've already gone through PA school, you have no right to try and dissuade your peers from working responsibly by front-loading studying. Let me clue you in: Life does not get any easier after PA school. I'll say it again: Life DOES NOT GET **ANY** EASIER after PA school. Working 60+ hour weeks when you're only paid for 40? That's the norm. Sleep deprivation? Not seeing your family nearly as much as you want to? Those, too, really are the new normal. PA school will not have been just training you in a condensed manner, it will have been training you in the lifestyle to which you will have needed to become accustomed. If you think PA school is a specific time in life, after which life gets a lot easier, you're deluding yourself. And if you're not already a practicing PA with a year or two under your belt, trying to contradict my statement out of your own ignorance will only demonstrate your capacity for public self-delusion. PA school is not an island of hard work in between coasting and coasting, it is a continuation of the hard work that got you there, and a prelude to the hard work you will need to engage in as you ramp up into an honest-to-goodness provider with real people's lives in YOUR hands. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted January 21, 2015 Share Posted January 21, 2015 I knew one of these would show up sooner or later. Unless you've already gone through PA school, you have no right to try and dissuade your peers from working responsibly by front-loading studying. Let me clue you in: Life does not get any easier after PA school. I'll say it again: Life DOES NOT GET **ANY** EASIER after PA school. Working 60+ hour weeks when you're only paid for 40? That's the norm. Sleep deprivation? Not seeing your family nearly as much as you want to? Those, too, really are the new normal. PA school will not have been just training you in a condensed manner, it will have been training you in the lifestyle to which you will have needed to become accustomed. If you think PA school is a specific time in life, after which life gets a lot easier, you're deluding yourself. And if you're not already a practicing PA with a year or two under your belt, trying to contradict my statement out of your own ignorance will only demonstrate your capacity for public self-delusion. PA school is not an island of hard work in between coasting and coasting, it is a continuation of the hard work that got you there, and a prelude to the hard work you will need to engage in as you ramp up into an honest-to-goodness provider with real people's lives in YOUR hands. Huh? I did not contradict your statement. I didn't even read your statement. I didn't attack anyone. I answered the OP, gave him the same advice I got before PA school (and glad I did). Please do not call me ignorant, assume things about me, or attack me on a public forum when you know nothing about me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Administrator rev ronin Posted January 21, 2015 Administrator Share Posted January 21, 2015 Huh? I did not contradict your statement. I didn't even read your statement. I didn't attack anyone. I answered the OP, gave him the same advice I got before PA school (and glad I did). Please do not call me ignorant, assume things about me, or attack me on a public forum when you know nothing about me. I didn't say that you contradicted me; you told the OP that studying was inadvisable, and tried to dissuade conscientious preparation. Allow me to review what you DID say: What? Pre-study? No, stop right now and enjoy life, because you won't have any for the next 2-2.5 years!!! You have NO WAY of knowing what to study, how to study, what is important vs less important. You will learn stuff that won't even help you in school or real life this way. Just...chill...! You said the underlined bit, which isn't untrue, but is instead a half-truth. Sure, there is no time during PA school... but there is no time after PA school, either. If you dig deeper into the forums, you'll see occasional plaintive posts from insufficiently dedicated newly-minted PAs who will find that no one wants to hire them after they've spent 6-12 months "catching up on life" that they suspended for PA school, rather than pursuing PANCE and job hunting immediately. Working your first PA job is NOT less stressful than PA school. It's a different kind of stress, to be sure, but it's still a lot of work and a lot of learning. Please don't be offended when I call your statement ignorant. If I believe it to be incorrect and harmful, and I do, then the two options are that your unintentionally incorrect (ignorant) or intentionally incorrect (lying). I'm sure you're a perfectly nice human being who's pursuing a career in medicine for the right reasons, and has done a ton of good in the world and will continue to do more as you pursue a career in medicine... but on this point, you're wrong. If I've assumed anything about you, it's that you approach life and give advice from a sincere but incorrect standpoint in this particular matter. For completeness' sake, the last bit of your statement, about not knowing what to study and risking wasting time, is a problem that multiple people in the thread acknowledged, and I wasn't objecting to it at all. Edit: And, to be fair to you, a few of those statements were preemptively directed towards anyone who would defend your statement, not necessarily you as the original author. Like I implied in my original rebuttal, this is not the first time the slacker sentiment has arisen in response to a poster asking how to study before school starts. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted January 21, 2015 Share Posted January 21, 2015 I still fail to see how speaking from a personal experience is ignorant. I graduated PA school, did I not? I know all the days and nights I spent studying. How is giving advice to someone who doesn't know how PA school will go ignorant or harmful? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cbrsmurf Posted January 22, 2015 Share Posted January 22, 2015 just let it go, people Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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