Tag: COB

Immunology Block

Oy Vey!

I tell myself I’m going to do better every single time, and that I’m going to change into better study habits, go to class more, stay on top of things, and live my best possibly healthy self while here.

Courtesy of giphy.com

Yea that’s a joke. Maybe I should look into hiring a personal life coach/motivator, because my self techniques are definitely NOT working right now.  I’m halfway through my first semester of medical school and I still have a lot of work to do. Not sure if I’ll ever get on top of things, but just like always, I’m at the crossroads of just finishing a block and about to start another. So of course I think I’ll miraculously change my current set-in-stone habits when in reality they will probably just get worse.

But let’s get into what you are all really here for. How does immunology in medical school go and how did I approach it?

COB Immunology vs COM Immunology

For those of you new here, I did a one year master’s program at KCU, which happens to be the current medical school I attend. The master’s program I attended is affectionately called “COB” for college of biosciences, while the medical school is designated as “COM” for college of medicine. If you are interested in going into the COM program like most of the students who partake in the COB program, then here are some things you should know:

Books

The authors of the book(s) that you use in COB and COM for this course wrote 2 versions: A large, very detailed more molecular based version of things and a smaller, more condensed version of things. As you can see, the blue book is larger and thicker, and it has a TON more text in it. The purple one is smaller and thinner, and honestly even though the chapters are about 20-25 pages each, the figures take up a lot of space/pages. In reality there really isn’t that much text.

The figures are the same. The content is the same, with the exception that one is paired down. And of course the authors are the same, so literally it’s the same book, just one is more detailed and one isn’t.

Why? Well in COB, it is a program designed to yes, help you get into medical school because it’s all hard sciences, BUT it is also geared towards those that are interested in becoming scientists and researchers. The whole time you are in COB quite honestly you learn SO.MUCH.MORE.DETAIL about a lot of these core classes, because they are assuming you may decide to research. You need this background and minute detail in this case.

Whereas in COM, you really only learn a very general overview of things and then at the end they hit you with a lot of clinical stuff which honestly, I did terrible in.

Detail:

Again, you learn more detail in COB than COM as noted above. Say for example, the molecular pathways of activating T and B cells, we had to learn every single step in COB. Every step! And then only ended up getting like 2 questions on it. Ugh I was so mad that I spent all that time on it. But, we needed to know those pathways in molecular for the next test block, so it just made me lazier in studying for molecular at that point in time.

In COM, you kinda learn the activation pathways for T cells, but it’s really general. There aren’t really any specific names for the enzymes involved (there are a few key ones to know/go over) and then it’s like here’s the pathway but you just need to know what happens in the end. For B cells, the book didn’t even really discuss it much. We had a few practice questions on it but NONE on the exam.

What I’m saying is the focus is very different between COB and COM, even though it is taught by the same people.

Questions:

Dr. Shnyra teaches the COB immunology course AND the COM course at the Kansas City campus. Dr. Bowden teaches the immunology course for the COM students here in Joplin. They teach slightly differently, but overall it’s the same stuff as they go off the books. Both teachers ask questions very similarly on exams. Just like in COB, in COM Dr. Shnyra sends out practice questions. And just like in COB, you need to pick the most correct answer out of the bunch. Dr. Shnyra has a ton of questions by the way in a bank, so if you go from COB to COM, you will get new questions when he sends out the practice sets. Most COBer’s used both the old questions from COB and the new ones sent to us during our COM course.

Breakdown of the Exam:

The midterm consisted of 65 questions:

Histo: 15 questions

Immunology: 50 questions

This first test heavily tested if you understood the difference between innate and adaptive immune systems, and if you could tell the difference between MHC class 1 versus class 2. It is very similar in COB, as this course tends to be taught more broadly at first then narrows in to more detail as you progress.

Final: 85 questions from immunology only.

The final was cumulative, minus the histology information.  Unfortunately because the midterm was easier for me I didn’t try to hard on the second test. Which was a massive mistake for me (I seem to making a lot of those here). Either way, in both COB and COM they really like to test hypersensitivity, because that is very relevant to your future patients that you will be treating. In COM there are more diseases you are tested on, but are more rare when treating patients in real life (but still need to be aware of).

How I studied:

#notsponsored

I completely filled up my sketchbook between biochemistry and musculoskeletal, so I had to get a new one. They are by this company called Denik, which you can find at Michael’s craft stores.  I like that the covers have more strength and girth to them than the hardcover sketchbooks, but are still soft and mold-able enough that I can move them fairly easily. They are a bit more expensive, but the money you pay goes towards schools in less privileged countries. Which really means I feel less awful about spending the money. Totally wish this was sponsored but long story short, I like their sketchbooks.

So much so I ended up buying 3.

I didn’t attend class very much although I heard great things about the Joplin professor for this campus. I found myself not able to focus very much sitting in class over the past few weeks, and felt it was better to try to self-study. There are pros and cons with that though.

Immuno notes

Pros include that I could sleep in and go at my own pace. Especially since I had a hard time paying attention in class, it was better that I didn’t feel I was wasting valuable study time and using it for something else instead.

Cons include that I am a terrible self motivator. And really didn’t stay on top of things very well.

But because I self studied, I actually ended up reading the book from cover to cover. Each lecture was correlated with one lecture, so instead of reading the powerpoint slides and just trying to piece things together from there, I read the book. There was some great background and explanations with doing it this way, but also a lot of additional information that wasn’t super necessary/on the lecture slides.

The extend of signaling, which my version was more detailed than the class version.

I also didn’t really feel the need to look at both campus’ lectures this time. Because each lecture has to correlate with the learning objectives posted, each of those learning objectives came from the book. If I felt I needed more explanation and couldn’t get it from the book or my campus’ lecture slides, I would hop on over to the other campus’ slides to see if there was a better explanation there!

I also did a lot of concept maps and drawings for immunology to help organize my thoughts in my book. My first pass was reading the chapter, the second pass was making notes on that chapter, and the third pass was reviewing the notes and/or looking at lecture slides. I would have done slightly better if I spent more time on the last 2 lectures as there were many questions about diseases and disease pathology that I just couldn’t answer on this year’s test.

If you have never taken immunology before, I still stand by using “How the Immune System Works” by Lauren Sompayrac (which was mentioned in one of my COB posts). It doesn’t matter which edition you get, in fact you could still get the 2nd or 3rd as it is much cheaper than the newer one. They don’t really change. I currently have the 4th and I believe E has the 5th version. Literally the same book except a different color cover.

This breaks things down really easily and helps explain some basic concepts in immunology. There are also some great figures in this book regarding pathways that sometimes Dr. Shnyra uses (not sure about Dr. Bowden) but in general can help make things understandable. I recommended this book to several other first years and they got great mileage out of it.

Scheduling:

This was a 3 week course. Our midterm was on the second Monday of the course, and our final was on the last Friday of the 3 weeks. As medical school is progressing, we increasing have other testing and competencies thrown at us that aren’t just involved in the core course we are in.  During this block, we had our first experience with 2 tests in one week on top of an SP encounter (or our practice sessions on how to interact with patients using actors). If you head on over to my Testing Schedule in Medical School post, this will give you a broader view of the amount of testing/competencies I’ve had so far.

Thankfully we didn’t have anatomy lab this time around on top of learning how to deal with juggling multiple testing situations this time.

As always, comment down below for things you found helpful or would like to hear about next! 

KCU-COB: Guide to Your Exams

Holy shit.

Courtesy of wifflegif.com

Exam time is finally here.

Shit. Shit. Shit. I’m not prepared!

This was usually my line of thought every single damn time we had an exam week roll around. Again, reviews are going to be your best friend before the exams.

I mean, I feel like I’ve written a bunch on the reviews for tests in previous posts already, but I will give it one more go for ya’ll just so you don’t have to hunt.

Exam Time:

KCU uses the app called Examplify. Pretty much the night before you take your exam, you are able to download it. You get an email telling you the time that it is available to download and other specifics about what time to arrive the next morning and what is allowed/not allowed. It doesn’t ever change (the information in the email other than the day and the test you are taking) so you don’t have to worry about things changing on you. You should download you exam that night. If not, you need to make sure you get there early enough to download it. Too many classmates would wait until right before they took the test and then the app would crash or their exam wouldn’t download.

So don’t do that.

Exams for my class would start at 9AM sharp. We would need to be in our seats by 8:50AM and have the exam up and ready.

Ipads had to be locked into the program, with wifi turned off and on airplane mode. Once everyone was seated, a code/password would be displayed on the screen. After you type this in, hit the accept button for a few prompts (which includes that your program will self lock and you cannot exit unless you hit the exit button), add another password, and then you start! If you try to get out of the program (like to look something up) and then get back in you will automatically fail as they will assume you were cheating.

It’s confusing the first one or two times but after that it’s pretty straightforward. They will give you a quick once over during orientation so you can see it. But I guarantee you’ll forget how to use the app once the first test week rolls around (because I sure as hell did).

Tests were usually anywhere between 45-65ish questions. See the post about the Inside Guide to Your Professors* for the specifics of how they test. Biochem and molecular would usually pull 5 questions per lecture to test on, but this was not, I repeat not a steadfast rule.

There is a countdown on the top bar so you know how long you have left in your test. There is also a calculator, a flag, and some other tools on the right hand side should you need it as you cannot leave the app during your test. Below is a snapshot of a sample test in the program. In the real test, over by where the submit & exit button is in the photo is where your countdown timer is. The submit & exit appears after you have answered all of the questions. You must submit and upload your exam before you can exit the application and leave the test (or they count this as cheating if you try to leave the application in a different format).

courtesy of iTunes.apple.com

If you have time, I suggest you go back and check your answers at least once. If not for the content, to make sure you picked the answer that you originally intended. My first test week the program glitched and got super touchy, and answers that I know I didn’t choose ended up being my final answer because I touched the wrong part of the screen. Subsequently, it counted it as a different answer. Since I didn’t check, I got the answer wrong.

Learn from my mistakes and double check your work.

Reviews:

For Dr. Zaidi & Dr. Agbas: They each have a review session that they give before each test block that they teach in. They both have a giant slide set that will have all of their slides from all their lectures in it, or will have most of the slides from all of their lectures. This means that you will have a slide set anywhere from 100-200+ slides. This is why in the previous post I mentioned above, you do not leave their information until the last second. Every thing they teach is fair game for a question to be pulled from, so you need to know it all.

Dr. White: He will have a slide set as well, but usually his slides are off of the main topics/high yield topics that he has at the end of his lectures. So the way his lectures are set up are all his normal slides, and then at the very end he will have condensed slides or example topics that he pulls for (most, not all) test questions. Sometimes he uses the slides that he puts for the condensed version at the end of his lectures in the review, other times he pulls the original slides for his reviews. These can also tend to be long, but that is usually because there is only a few sentences per slide. His stuff also during my year tended to be the last few lectures before test time, so they were pretty fresh in my brain at that point.

Dr. Kincaid: Again, if she gives a review, go to the review. She will usually point you to the topics of what you need to directly know and will tell you the topics of the essays/short answers. She does like very specific detail and can ask several questions that are detailed oriented, so her reviews help point to a chunk of the detail she is specifically interested in. She does not always give a review though.

Dr. Anderson: I’ve stated this one enough; go to his reviews. He will narrow down the topics and give you what you need to know for 90-95% of the test. He will usually only throw 1-2 questions on there that you haven’t seen before to see how well you actually studied outside of his reviews. Typically for him, his reviews obviously gave me majority of the answers, but I would study based off the posted review he gave us so I knew the information inside and out no matter which way he asked it. Because even if he uses the same topic/question, he will word a few of them differently which means the answer is different. But if you study based off the learning objectives/reviews he gives instead of just memorizing the straight question, you will understand the concept better and answer any question he throws you based off that topic.

Dr. Segars: He will try to give a review. If he is able to, he will set aside one class period to go over the main topics we learned. If not, he will end a class partially early and use the rest of the time to go over the review. You do have a solid review with questions in tutoring though.

Dr. Shnyra: He can give a review, but usually the review/questions in tutoring were more helpful for me. Also the questions sets he sends us himself are the most helpful (compared to the in class review, unless he is going over why the answer is correct on his question stem), as you can figure out how he writes his test questions.

 

Good luck studying and kick some ass this year! Let me know if you found this information helpful down in the comments below and what you would like to see next.