IT’S FINALLY DONE.
YAYAYAYAYAY!!!!
This block, which was brutal in content and in length, is finally freaking over. I have never been so excited for a course to end. In fact, right now MSK (or musculoskeletal) makes biochem look a brisk breeze in late summer in comparison (for me anyways). They both definitely sucked, but MSK by far took the cake for the most suckage that occurred. And if you ask the second years or my classmates looking for validation, MSK is the hardest course of this semester. So, I’m double glad it’s over.
A brief recap from the first half: MSK is a 6 week-long course. We had our midterm at 3 weeks in and then had our final a couple of days ago. If you are interested in my mindset, how I studied, what I could have done differently, etc, check out the first half of this post here: “First half of MSK”.
Exam Breakdown:
We again had our written exam in the morning and then had our anatomy practical in the afternoon. It was the same set up as the midterm where we all take the written together in the lecture hall, but since we have to do the anatomy lab in smaller chunks (not all of us can fit at all 50 stations in one go) we were broken up into 3 separate testing times. Last time I was in the middle group to go, this time I was the last practical group to go.
Written Exam Breakdown:
Anatomy questions: 39 [From 10 lectures]
Biochemistry questions: 4 [From 1 lecture]
Histology questions: 20 [From 5 lectures]
Pharmacology questions: 7 [From 1 lecture/DSA]
Physiology questions: 22 [From 4 lectures]
Total: 92
Yes, we had biochemistry this time on this test. Which honestly was one of the easier lectures to digest because our professor discussed what we had already talked about in biochem, just in less detail and more oriented for musculoskeletal use/correlation.
Anatomy Lab Breakdown:
There isn’t a set breakdown for how this section works, but I will explain how the lab practicals run. I’ve drawn a diagram that shows how we move in the lab during the practical. There are 50 stations, and several rest stops. There is 1 minute (or about 1 minute) at each station for you to find the pin/tag, figure out what it is, and write it down. In Joplin this year, we wrote down our answers on paper instead of using iPads. So we each started at a station and rotated through until we hit every station.
The structures that can get tested are all on a printout that they gave us at the start of this section. Technically, they are not supposed to tag things that are not on the list. However this also means that when you put down your answers because we have a printed list, it needs to be referred to in the term they specifically give and spelled correctly (which is according to how they spell it on the sheet).
In order to study for this, we would take the structure lists and just go around to different bodies and see if we could identify what was on the list. Some bodies had things that other bodies did not, either due to it being cut or removed at that tank, or not being dissected out.
Key: Purple boxes are the tanks. Tanks are what we call the tables that have our cadavers on them. The row on the bottom of purple boxes simulates the back wall in the lab. On the back wall are usually bone models, ligament models, skeletons, or radiographs for us to look at. Things that we cannot see on the cadavers or cannot see well on the cadavers but they still want to test us on.
Red x’s are rest stations. There is a rest station right before the start of the tanks, a rest station right before the back wall after all the tanks, and rest stations after each row of tanks.
Blue indicates the numbers or questions. So for each body, there would be something tagged on each side. That way they could use one body for multiple questions.
Black arrows indicate the flow of the lab. So if you start at #1 and follow it down, you will see a snake rotation around the tanks.
How I studied:
I had greater motivation this time around, although unfortunately my written scores were still lower than I would have liked. I increased my percentage by 7% from the midterm though! So that means my hard work paid off…just not to the degree I was hoping for.
Due to my motivation early on (which most definitely dwindled closer to test time), I was able to really learn the first 2 days of material on Sunday before we started. Since I did that, I was mostly on top of material for that first week. In week one for this section, we had a total of 11 lectures that first week. They did tend to pile on the lectures heavily at the start of that week, as we would have 3 or 4 lectures in a day. Thankfully that first Friday we had off, and things weren’t as intense going forward. There was a fair amount of gross anatomy and histology lectures though this week, and the histology was definitely harder to digest for me. The second week we had 7 lectures to learn, and the third week we had 2 lectures of required material.
You are probably thinking Joyce, you had SO MUCH TIME then. Why was this so hard to manage? You are just being lazy here.
Yes, yes I was lazy to a degree. We did have lectures for other courses interjected into that schedule, and we also had an OS exam (osteopathic skills) on the second Friday. The day before a test they usually give us at least half a day if not the whole day off from lectures to study, which is why there weren’t as many lectures that second week. We also had an SP encounter in the third week, so we were practicing on actors with taking histories and exams which cut into lecture time. Lastly we had an injection lab skills check-off and an exam check-off sprinkled in there too!
Check-offs or competencies are where we demonstrate skills, in this case injecting different ways and doing different exams for a specific complaint, and we get graded on how well or competent we are in those skills.
So even though the anatomy load in and of itself was less as the weeks for this section went on, we still had several things to do. To be honest, because we had an OS exam on that second Friday and I had been punting OS so hard before, I mostly studied for OS that second week instead of keeping up on anatomy. And I hadn’t gone through everything for the first week either, so I was a bit behind.
But hey, at least this time around I actually got to go through all the lectures more than once!
Lecture:
- I did not attend most lectures this time around. I found the other campus’ material to be more in-depth with more detail, and would watch their lectures after sleeping in a bit. If I was feeling well enough to get up, I would go to my campus’s lectures. Otherwise, most of lectures were watched on campus later and then I would review both sets of slides to make sure I got the information presented to both campuses.
- I did more objectives for my histology lectures and physiology lectures this time around. It made it easier to put these confusing sections into my own words and arrange it differently than what was on the slides.
- I spent more time looking at the slides for histology so I could identify them on the test (for histology, sometimes we get identify this slide questions and other times it is multiple choice on text about histology concepts).
- I drew out all of the anatomy. I ain’t no Picasso baby, but drawing it was much more helpful than just starting at an atlas 50 times. I didn’t necessarily keep drawing out muscles and things every time I reviewed them, but I did in my notebook while doing my first pass/in-depth notes for the gross anatomy lectures.
- I wrote out my notes more this time. It worked in biochem, and I was hoping more would stick/I would understand more this way. I completely used up more than half my sketchbook/notebook this time though due to it. So I’ll have to get another one!
- I did more than one pass on the material this time.
Lab:
- I spent more time dissecting on my own time, or trying to find structures on my own while we were still dissecting. I also found it MUCH MORE HELPFUL to learn some of the structures (if not all of them) before that day’s lab. It made going to lab much more beneficial and didn’t feel wasteful of my time as I had an idea of what I was looking for and dissecting.
- My group and I also made sure that we tried to dissect as much as possible in the allotted lab time, and if we couldn’t get it done we decided to split up the work and come in later to finish it. That way, we weren’t behind and everything was dissected.
- On top of going in and dissecting outside of lab, I went in and just reviewed structures on the list on a few different bodies. I would start with my own, and then work to other bodies to see if I could find the structures.
- A few days before the test, a group of friends and I went in together and just quizzed each other on structures on the cadavers. This was great because we each knew something that someone else didn’t, and we were able to point the structures out on the cadavers and teach one another a bit.
- I most definitely utilized the bone boxes again for the bones.
Overall Thoughts:
Like I said, overall I did do better, just not by much. I was able to go through more material, spend more time with it, and understand it a bit better. I’m happy that I improved on my studying technique as well. There was definitely much less crying happening this time around. They have yet to officially release the scores (I just have my raw score after taking the written) and they have not graded the practical yet either. So we will see!
Let me know what you liked or didn’t like about this post! Make sure to comment down below to let me know what you would like to see or if you have questions.