Neuroanatomy Notes (...and a fair bit of ranting !)

Neuroanatomy seems to be by far the most hated subject in the whole MD Intermediate curriculum... The reasons ?

1. The subject is quite extensive and very complicated by its nature.
2. Most good books on the subject are equally extensive and complicated, and very few MDII students can afford to devote a couple of months to the exclusive study of such a book.
3. The suggested book is too short and not particularly clear on far too many topics.
4. The lectures and tutorials are very controversial, and don't seem to contribute much (if at all) to the understanding of the subject.
5. The exam questions are even more controversial, completely ignoring basic information (that is clinically significant to most doctors) for the sake of minor details (that are only useful to the extremely small percentage of the class that will become neurosurgeons).

So what can students do ? Completely ignore the subject ? That's what many students did until last year, when the people at the anatomy department decided to change the exam regulations. The new regulations force students to get a minimum of 35% in each subject tested in the anatomy paper, or else they fail the paper, regardless of their performance in the rest of the subjects.

Of course, what the department should have done instead would have been to look for the reasons behind the students' bad performance in neuroanatomy, and possibly introduce changes to the way it's taught, making it more accessible and more clinically relevant. But they didn't.

So what can students do (I ask again) ? Well... What I did, was to ignore lectures and tutorials and dedicate a reasonable amount of time to study the subject from the best book available (FitzGerald et al.), hoping that I would get the minimum required grade. What I should have also done would be to take a look at some lecture notes, to get a basic grasp of the seemingly pointless details that the lecturer considers important. And I should have also gone through the past papers, because there seems to be a certain degree of repetitiveness in the exam questions.



Good night, and good luck.

Riding The System !

A few minutes ago, one of the visitors of this blog sent me a question, asking what book I would recommend for the acid/base part of the physiology curriculum.

As you all know, the lectures on acid/base are notoriously incomprehensible, partly due to the inherent difficulty of the subject and partly due to the way the lecturer approaches it. Things are not made better by the equally incomprehensible set of 'notes' which he kindly provides for the... 'benefit of the students'.

So what can a responsible student do to overcome this obstacle ? Read one of the popular physiology textbooks, like Guyton or Ganong ? Nope, the profs says they're no good. Keep lecture notes and try to memorise them ? Nope, the profs says that's no good either. Ask for a four-year leave and move to Great Britain to get an MSc in acid/base physiology ? That might help, but it's hardly a reasonable option, don't you find ?

The real solution is much simpler, my friends : ride the system !!!

Riding the educational system is an ancient art, almost as ancient as educational systems themselves. And, unlike riding a motorbike, it doesn't need any special training and involves no risks for the people that practice it. All you need is some common sense and the realisation of a basic principle : every educational system has weaknesses, and many of them can be exploited by students to make their life easier.

One such weakness is the way the physiology paper is set in our university : eight essay questions, out of which you have to answer five. Of those eight question 'slots', only one can be used for acid/base. So why bother ? Don't study acid/base at all, and you can still afford not to study an additional two physiology topics :-)

"But are we supposed to do that ?", I hear you ask. "Are we going to be good doctors like that ?", I hear you ask.

And I say, RUBBISH ! Being able to write a four-page essay on the Siggaard-Andersen equation will NOT make you a good doctor. It might make you a good physiologist, but it's trivial knowledge for a clinical doctor, which is what most of us want to become. And that is not the opinion of just a humble medical student, but of many people I have discussed this issue with, who happen to be REAL doctors, not lab scientists who have never touched a patient in their lifes.

So feel free to ride the system, and please start being critical about the knowledge you're being spoon-fed with. Because that is what you will need in the clinical years and this is what is going to ultimately make you a good doctor ;-)