Physiology 2nd year Tips etc

[Imran]

1)Use sherwood-decent textbook-guyton and hall is better though but more detailed
More coming...

[melj]

i would recommend you use the interactive physiology CD that comes with the silverthron book. its excellent and really makes complicated concepts so simple.

[Imran]

i would recommend you use the interactive physiology CD that comes with the silverthron book. its excellent and really makes complicated concepts so simple.

Alhamdulillah, any other brothers and sisters who has advice for 2nd year physiology may do so here-we've all had different experiences and different people may prefer different strategies. Silverthorn's a bit more detailed than sherwood as well.

2)For physiology make sure u memorise the mindmaps from the actual lectures-always helps because almost any q in the exam will rely on u to extrapolate from the mindmap or data from a lecture
3)DO NOT rely on past paper questions-this is a gateway to laziness that people are too ready to abuse
4)Make sure u can draw out diagrams and mindmaps from memory-this will also help u assess ur understanding-so during midsem break or whatever when u r revising try this too see where ur at
5)In 2nd year the teextbooks are more usful than the lectures themselves on most occasions unlike in 3rd year say. It is important to borrow a textbookearly-don't expect to find one 4 weeks out from exams
6)Midsem exams are great to get a lead in the assessments as many people stuff up the MCQ. Go hard the first 6 weeks for physio. Then maybe go hard the next 3 or so weeks for other subjects to catch up. Priooritise ur assessments

[Imran]

For cardiac part of physiology make sure u know all the data, graphs as well as they may ask u to draw it and explain it. For renal the lecturer's notes were sufficient as sherwood was quite limited on that topic and approached it differently. Muscle was good and very simple and comprehensively covered-so make sure u knwo it in detail and the questions in the exam shouldn't be too difficult.

Neuroscience part of physiology-make sure u know how to draw the diagrams on the lecture slides-in fact the optic nerve pathways is the most popular and has been asked at least 2 times in the past few years.

Gut and digestion was quite detailed and required lecture notes as textbook was not as good(talking about sherwood). This time make sure u know the diferent substance and their effects-often the information is summarised in table form-in our year there was a question given which required us to compare and contrast certain substances CCK secretin etc-make sure u know the molecular details well especially the receptors they act on as well as the homology in their structures

[Imran]

In terms of the assessment structure in normal physiology you have to do IBLs(group oral presentations-dodgy especially if u have a dodgy group) as well as lab reports. Advanced is much better and allows greater flexibility and is more interesting-the exams are the same-just the other assessments are different

Bill phillips' questions are always testing understanding unlike max bennett's who asks you to basically rewrite what he said in his lectures. Make sure you can answer bill's objectives(that's where qs come from) and read his supplementary notes-in this sections I actually found my physics experience more useful as he deals with cable properties etc for conduction of currents in axons etc

[Imran]

Physiology 2nd semester was much better with respiratory system etc examined. Sherwood is not so good-in fact many of the lecturers that use diagrams use diagrams derived from guyton which should be available from the library. Hormones lectures contained a lot of information with Rhodes and Pflanzes being the main sources of infromation-berne and levy was also good as would be guyton-sherwood was not as detailed in terms of the metabolic pathways involved or receptor pathways.

[Imran]

In physiology u also have midsem exams-basically 40 MCQ questions that cover the first 6 weeks or so of lectures-but they test minute details so u have to know in quite a bit of detail in terms of certain names of mediators, hormone synthesis etc(mainly stuff relating to thyroxine here but overall hormone stuff can get annoying with different effects). Types of recpeotrs(subsets etc_ should also be memorised). Timing isn't really an issue but u really can't leave it all to the last minute for the midsem exam as it may seem a lot to remember when cramming so many details (in contrast the final exam has broader questions).