<p>What if we don't take these classes for pre-req?</p>
<p>Do these classes actually help during the first two years?</p>
<p>I didn’t and I’ve been fine. Unless you take it your senior year, chances are that it won’t be a huge help. Plus, medical school level anatomy tends to be more in depth from what I hear from my classmates.</p>
<p>I see… problem is that I haven’t taken any anatomy at all (not even from high school).</p>
<p>The only reason I would think these would help is there would be a lot of overlap (so at least I would get exposure) even if the med school version is more detailed.</p>
<p>Some schools (ahem, USC) actually mildly discourage taking A&P; however, it won’t really hurt nor will it help to take these courses. For PA, yes, for MD/DO, no.</p>
<p>I never took anatomy. If you know where the gall bladder and spleen are, you are good to go. Yes, there is anatomy overlap, but once again unless you take it close to when you enter medical school you probably won’t remember most of it. It will still help, but I wouldn’t kill yourself to take the courses. Most people at my school hadn’t taken anatomy before, it just isn’t that big of deal and it won’t prevent you from acing the class.</p>
<p>I see, thank you for the clarification.</p>
<p>Why would some schools (ahem, USC) discourage it?</p>
<p>I know UCLA expressly discourages you from taking it because it’s generally taught poorly/inaccurately at the undergrad level.</p>
<p>^my guess would be USC discourages it for the same reason as norcalguy said UCLA does. It may be poorly taught and/or is of little value to your med school graduation. They generally prefer students with a breadth of knowledge and what you’ll be learning in med school FAR exceeds your UG’s A&P courses, so it makes that background virtually worthless.</p>
<p>Doesn’t an intro A&P class provide some MCAT benefits?</p>
<p>^Yes… many premed believe it does to a limited degree, but you can get what you need in any MCAT review. Additionally, people will tend to believe things helped them when they do not. Case in point: AMCAS did a study of students who had or had not taken biochem prior to taking the MCAT (because many students believed it had helped them) and found no significant difference between groups.</p>
<p>Animal Phys is far higher yield than A&P, in my opinion.</p>