I started FIRST SEMESTER (of five on the island) on September 6, 1999. What a historic day in my life!
our classes were 1) Anatomy, 2) Histology and 3) Embryology.
1) ANAToMY
The professors structured this course in an excellent way. At the start of each block they gave you a handout, which had everything you needed to know. During the lectures they supplemented the handout. Plan on wasting your time reading that big Moore book?
Well, that is a no-no. Just know those handouts cold for the tests.
I recommend the Board Review Series for Anatomy. The Netter Atlas is a must, always have it open while studying. Now, for the lab, you need to go after hours to the lab (with other med students) and quiz each other on all the cadavers: don’t just know your cadaver, you must know all of them. This course will teach you where all the organs, vessels and nerves are so that later you can learn about their diseases with a better understanding.
2) HISToLoGY
This course was easily the worst experience I had at Saba. The professor was this incredibly conceited and rude person, who
quite honestly did not care about you or what you learned. He just walked into class every day and recited (by memory) the day’s lecture, at a New York taxi cab’s speed and then left. The students who came to Saba with a really good histology background were able to do well, but otherwise you were screwed.
on at least three times during this course, the Scranton in-correctly marked questions wrong on our tests. All these times this professor said that he would give us these points at the end of the course. These are points that we had EARNED (not a curve!). Well, at the end of the course he didn’t give them to us.
He was a liar on a big power trip. I complained about him to the President of the school, the school did nothing.
This is one thing you will notice very early on when you at-tend a Caribbean medical school: there is no real professionalism among the teaching staff.
A great book is the Wheaters w/CD ROM. Now for the lab component, like anatomy, you need to go after hours to the lab and learn the slides. This is largely a course that deals with the way something looks under a microscope, normally and abnormally, and to learn how to differentiate between the two.
3) EMBRYoLoGY
Basically, if you just read your textbook, you were fine. Lectures were like a story. I preferred reading the text (even though I hate reading big books). But this book is very readable and interesting.
Read the book! There is no shortcut. You may think that there is, but it won’t work.
The High Yield book for embryology is terrible, way too point form. A lot of people dismiss this class, but it IS important be-cause many of the diseases you learn in Pathology are embryo-logical. This course will teach you about the ‘nine month’ period that a baby goes through from conception to birth.
SECoND SEMESTER we had Biochemistry, Physiology, Psychology and Ethics.
4) BIoCHEMISTRY
A lot of stuff to learn, but Dr. S. was excellent. He made bio-chemistry seem easy. Dr. L. taught us the harder blocks, so it was tough. Pathways, pathways ... and more. Enzymes, rate-limiting steps and all that ‘short term’ memory stuff. Make yourself some nice charts and keep them for when you get to pharmacology, where you learn about drugs that block these pathways.
Class notes and Lippincott is all you need. Lippincott text rules. There is a lot of stuff on this course, but that book, with your time commitment, will help you really get a handle on this course. Dr. S. based his final exam on the 30 Biochemistry pages in the famous First Aid for the USMLE Step 1 book: a great idea, I think.
5) PHYSIoLoGY
This is a very important course because physiology is the study of the normal functioning of the human body. You need to get a good handle on it before you get to pathology, which is the study of the abnormal. So learn as much as you can. I had a good experience in this course.
I recommend the Saunders Physiology book by Costanza.
Great subject. Saunders Physiology by Costanza is the #1 book for physiology. There is a lot of controversy about whether to use Guyton. My opinion? You have got to be kidding me ... waaay too much info in that book for a one-semester course. That Guyton book is awful.
6) PSYCHoLoGY
Dr. K (a fellow York University grad!) makes your life a lot easier in this course. Believe me, this course could be really hard, but Dr. K teaches it in a fun way. I recommend the High Yield book. Psych is a good read. You can relax (at least I did) and read the Kaplan and Saddock Pocket Handbook and learn a lot.
7) ETHICS
The J.D. who taught this brought his 17 years of law practice experience to this course. It is quite interesting. So sit back, relax (everyone got an A) and just listen and talk about medical ethics, and learn some cool things.
THIRD SEMESTER we had Microbiology, Neuroscience, Genetics and Epidemiology.
8) MICRoBIoLoGY
The first month of this course was - God - such a struggle. I mean, the prof was just awful. our class notes were basically a bunch of random words with no correlation ... a word salad. So every student was reading a different source to TRY to under-stand what the hell was going on. Just look at the books people in my class were reading a Immunology required text, Lange’s, High Yield, BRS, USMLE Review Book, Medical Micro Book, etc.
With the students who took their course before, their schema once again compensated, but me, the math major, got killed.
Just when I thought I had to throw in the towel, Dr. T. came in and taught us. She was like our “MESSIAH” saving us from the falling depths of hell. She was wonderful.
In five semesters on the island, my favorite textbook was the Clinical Microbiology Made Ridiculously Simple - get it! For Im-munology we all used different sources because it was sooo badly
organized. Microbiology is very important. Get a good handle on all the bugs: bacteria, parasites, fungi and viruses. Make charts with a list of all the bugs and some classic ‘buzzwords’ about each. It will help you later on.
9) NEURoSCIENCE
“Please rescue me!” Could things get any worse? The lectures for this class are the biggest joke. You sit in class for two hours every day and learn nothing. So I would go home after class and read that God-awful Snell book. I read the entire book (540 pages) and recall, I HATE reading big textbooks. But I had no choice. I typed up chapter summaries for the entire book. Neuro can be very hard, so don’t get bogged down with details, just learn the big picture.
10) GENETICS
The prof plagiarized this course straight from the Thompson and Thompson Genetics books. He put all his copied lectures in one notebook. During class he explained them as if he wrote them. In addition, unfortunately he demonstrated terribly unprofessional behavior: from verbally abusing students to physically abusing teachers (yes, this is true), to failing students he did not like.
Welcome to the Caribbean, folks.
He desperately needed professional help in controlling his tem-per. I think he had a very sad and troubled life. I have no idea why the school kept him on staff. Genetics was easy so don’t worry.
11) EPIDEMIoLoGY
Just print out her PowerPoint® lectures and read them and the book. Don’t sweat this course … the amount of Epidemiology you need to know for the USMLE Step 1 would probably take about two weeks to learn. This course is about statistics related to health care.
FoURTH SEMESTER (second year begins!). We had Pa-thology I, Pharmacology and Physical Diagnosis.
12) PATHoLoGY I
This course was largely a review of stuff you already know (the first half of the Robbins book). The profs were terrible and you basically realize what a waste of time it is after a few weeks. Just read the pocket Robbins and read their PowerPoint® lectures (which were basically pocket Robbins typed word-for-word into PowerPoint®).
Pathology is arguably the most important course. It is held over two semesters. Robbins text is used here, it’s a horrible book.
Personal opinion? The Golgan book is way better. Can you read and understand all that is Robbins? If yes, then that’s great! If not, get the pocket Robbins. Pathology I is mostly all cellular
‘ga-ga’ - really boring. Learn it all because, unfortunately, they will be on the boards.
13) PHARMACoLoGY
Dr. N. and Dr. I. did a great job at teaching this course of 700 drugs. The orange Katzung review book is excellent. The green Katzung book is far too detailed for a one-semester course. Also, the board simulator series pharmacology questions are very good to do for preparation.
Read their PowerPoint® lectures first, then read the corre-sponding chapter in that review book and do the MCQs. For the final exam, I did all 570 pharmacology questions from the Board Simulator CD Rom; it helped a lot!
You have to know this course well; it is extremely important.
For each drug learn the generic names, drug class, mechanism of action, usage, side effects and drug interactions. Study this course hard.
14) PHYSICAL DIAGNoSIS
I did the absolute bare minimum in this course, because it was so badly taught and disorganized, and I learned next to nothing.
So I can’t tell you anything about it, sorry.
FIFTH SEMESTER (almost out of here!), we had Introduc-tion to Clinical Medicine, Pathology II and at the end of the semester, USMLE Review.
15) INTRoDUCTIoN To CLINICAL MEDICINE This was by far the most useless course of the entire five semes-ters. I mean, they could have made this course very helpful, and really solidify what we had learned so far. But they didn’t. It was mostly student presentations, which are snooze city, and irrelevant lectures by useless profs. Geez, what can I say, presentations! So learn how to use Microsoft PowerPoint® and get a head start on writing History and Physicals if you have time.
16) PATHoLoGY II
Arguably the most important course for the boards, but we had the most horrible profs this side of the Atlantic ocean.
Sometimes I could not believe how bad they were. They were mostly heavy-accent losers from foreign countries. I mean, this course had the worst professors. Man, oh man. The only reason I would even attend class is because we had this bogus attendance policy. But people still skipped! Just read Robbins, Golgan or the Kaplan books and teach yourself.
You have to know your pathology of organs systems. otherwise you will never pass the boards. Learn patient presentations, even for Step 1. Be able to link pathology to pharmacology and mi-crobiology, as these types of questions appear in large numbers.
Get the First Aid book and the Vignettes and a good ‘digestible’
pathology book and study, study, study!
17) USMLE BoARD REvIEw
They put this at the very end. Four weeks of professors coming in and trying to review two years worth of basic sciences. I just sat in the back of the class and read my Kaplan books.
Well, on April 18, 2001, a day I never thought would come, I finally finished my time on that boring island (yeah!).
I started my third year clinical rotations in August of 2001 in the United States.
IMPoRTANT NoTE:
My dear friends, please remember that finishing five semesters of basic sciences at a Caribbean medical school does not mean much. In fact, it means absolutely zero!
EVERYTHING you have to do in order to get a residency in the United States happens AFTER you leave the island.