We're Getting Fooled Again

For your viewing pleasure...

"How is this relevant to anything?" you ask.  Well, it's not really.  But I'm pretty sure NJMS is trying to trick us again in the same way they tried to with Mind, Brain, and Behavior (get it, get it? we won't get fooled again?).

Remember how our schedule is supposed to be a block schedule?  One science-y class plus one how-to-be-a-good-doctor-and-learn-social-skills class at a time?  They're doing a bad job that.  The science class we're in right now is DPPT - Disease Process, Prevention, and Treatment.  This class goes from last week until mid-March.  March!  That is like a 5-month course which is very un-block schedule-like.  Plus it incorporates both pathology and pharmacology, basically the two biggest subjects ever in med school.  So uh, no big deal putting them together, because neither is really that intense right?

All my complaining aside, it does soooorta make sense to lump the two together because the course is organized in a systems-based way.

What does that mean?  Well, we have a cardiology unit where we learn about all the things that can go wrong with the heart and then we learn about all the ways we can fix those things.  Then we have a pulmonary unit where we learn about all the things that can go wrong with the lungs and how to fix them, and etc. for the other organ systems in our body.

But don't pretend this is a block schedule.  Come on now.

We Now Return to Our Normal Posting Schedule

Back to med school and our new class: Mind, Brain, and Behavior. We med students have been completely hoodwinked by the administration regarding this class. "Hoodwinked?" you ask. "How so?"

Well, for the first time since we started school, we are actually taking only one class at a time. No Physician's Core, and no Preceptor - hooray! While this class isn't easy, we've heard from the second-years that it's easiER (read: more manageable) because of the fact that we don't have another class hanging over our heads, or any other obligations. An end-of-the-year present to the med students from the people who make our curriculum.



Well, my response to that is: LIES.



They make us believe they are doing us a favor by giving us only "one" class to focus on. Why is that in quotes? Because Mind, Brain, and Behavior is 100% two classes hiding under the guise of one misleading title.

The first class is neuroscience (encompassing neuro-anatomy and neuro-physiology), and the second is psychology. Let me present to you the evidence that these are in fact two completely separate courses.


Exhibit A: We now have 5-6 hours of lecture a day, up from 2-3 during physiology. Double the lectures because of double the courses? You decide.

Exhibit B: Two completely different sets of professors for the two classes.

And, Exhibit C, the most damning piece of evidence: They are color-coded differently on the master schedule - neuroscience yellow, psychology green. Different colors = different courses. Any Type-A, obsessive-compulsive schedule-maker knows that.

Exhibit C

So while it is definitely nice to be done for the year with all the fun doctor-y classes, I would just like all our med school administrators to know that you're not fooling anyone - we see right through you, and we know that we are still taking two classes right now. Hoodwinked, my butt. We know what's up.

Things Could Always Be Worse?

This exam week is really the exam week to end all exam weeks (hah, just try using "exam week" more times than me in a single sentence). Yesterday we had our Anatomy Unit IV exam (head and neck), coming up on Friday is our Anatomy shelf exam (basically a national, standardized final - see this post if you want to know more of my thoughts on shelf exams), and then the following Monday is our final for Ethics, Humanism, and Professionalism.

This is by far the busiest week in terms of tests that I have had so far in med school. BUT before you start feeling tooooo bad for me, I look to other med schools to make myself feel better.


NJMS has a block schedule, which means we really only take one major class at a time. Just as a reminder (in case for some weird reason you haven't memorized every single word I've ever written in the blog), our first block included MGM, or Molecular and Genetic Medicine (basically biochemistry) plus a Physician's Core class of Medical Interviewing.

Our second block, which we are finishing up right now, is ACE (Anatomy, Cell Biology, and Embryology - with Histology thrown in there too, but apparently it doesn't deserve it's own letter in the title) with a Physician's Core class of Ethics, Humanism, and Professionalism, or EHP. People really freaking love mnemonics in med school.

Coming up next is Physiology with Physical Exam.


But people I know at other med schools take alllll of their classes at once. Yes, they move slower than us in each subject (because the class will last the whole year), but it's still like, 7 classes they have to be able to keep straight at once. And come exam week - now that is an exam week that makes my exam week from hell look like the easiest exam week ever (woo, beat my record!).


Obviously, there are pros and cons to both a block schedule and a regular schedule (for instance, some schools have a systems-based curriculum, so in every class they will be learning about the heart at the same time - the biochemistry behind it, how it develops in the embryo, the anatomy of it, how it works in physiology, drugs and diseases related to it in pharmacology - and that's sort of a cool way to learn).


But come exam week, I am VERY happy with our block schedule. Not only do we rarely have more than one exam at a time, but we can also actually enjoy ourselves for a night or two after an exam instead of struggling to catch up in all the other classes we abandoned while cramming for the exam for that one class.