MEDSCI142

This was my favourite paper of the whole entire year. It was also the paper that required the most time and effort to do well! I didn’t mind this too much because I loved the content in this paper so much. It is the most similar to medicine, so if you don’t enjoy this paper…probably rethink your career choice!

Structure

Lectures

The content for this paper is taught in eight lecture blocks, each one about a different body system.

1. Nervous System — the human brain, spinal cord, sensory systems, motor systems and Parkinson’s Disease. (5 lectures)
   This is such an awesome way to start the course. The lecturer is amazing and the content is all new (well to me it was). I always find it a lot easier to be interested in something when I have never learnt anything about it at all. This is quite a nice lecture block that most people do reasonably well on.
2. Cardiovascular System — blood circuits, the heart, blood vessels, mitral regurgitation, cardiac output, initiation & regulation of heart beat and blood pressure. (8 lectures)
   This block is broken up into two parts, anatomy and physiology. These two parts are taught by different lecturers and one is really easy and the other is really not. Anatomy is really straightforward and interesting to learn about. Physiology is not straightforward and takes quite a bit of time to get your head around. Learn the flow charts the lecturer goes through, cause often they come up in the exam.
3. Autonomic and Endocrine Systems — overview of the autonomic and endocrine systems, and the stress response. (2 lectures)
   This block is the simplest and the shortest. The lecturer is actually the Phase 1 Director of the medical school and teaches the content really well. He also usually has a surprise at the end of his second lecture, so make sure you head along for that.
4. Reproductive System — overview of reproduction, female reproduction, sex determination & differentiation, puberty, menopause, male reproduction, sperm & fertility. (5 lectures)
   I wasn’t particularly looking forward to this module, and I was expecting it to be quite lame and cliche. This ended up being my absolute favourite module from the whole entire course. I found it fascinating and often came home to tell fun facts around the dinner table such as “how many mls is a normal human ejaculation?” — I don’t think it was exactly appreciated. I didn’t find this topic very hard, but I also really enjoyed it, so maybe it just stuck in my head better than the other ones, and wasn’t actually easier. It is taught by two different lecturers, one does the female reproduction and the other does the male reproduction.
5. Respiratory System — the lung, mechanics of breathing, flow of air, transport & exchange of oxygen & carbon dioxide, alveolar ventilation & its regulation. (6 lectures)
   This block is also broken up into anatomy and physiology (which are taught by different lecturers). Anatomy was very easy. Physiology was the absolute hardest part of all of medsci. This was partly due to the lecturer, who (luckily for you) has now retired, so you may find this topic a lot easier than we did. If you are confused, read the textbook and see if that helps, and also listen to the lecture recordings again.
6. Renal System — kidney anatomy & histology, kidney function and hormonal regulation of the kidney. (4 lectures)
   Again, this is taught by two different lecturers, one for anatomy and the other for physiology. Anatomy (as useful for this course) was quite straightforward. I didn’t really enjoy physiology at all and it took me a while to get the hang of. For others though, all of renal was quite straightforward and enjoyable, so don’t let me taint your view of it.
7. Musculoskeletal System — bone, joints, and muscle. (5 lectures)
   I enjoyed this module, and found the lectures reasonably simple. Don’t be fooled by this though, the exam questions ended up being more difficult than I had expected and required quite a bit of specific detail. Make sure you know everything quite well. The lecturer is awesome though.
8. Digestive System — an overview of the digestive system from the mouth to the anus. (3 lectures)
   This module is a great end to the course. It is taught incredibly well and is really easy to follow. The exam questions are also really nice and predictable and it is just all-round great. Don’t stress about this block.

Laboratories

There are six 3-hour labs for this paper, one every two weeks. Labs for this paper are varied in what you are doing. Unlike your biology labs from first semester, there is no assignment sheet to fill-out during the lab. Instead, at the end of the lab, there is a 10 question MCQ that relates to what you learnt and did in the lab. Thus, it is good to pay attention to what the demonstrator says, as they will most likely drop you hints about what is important to know for the MCQ.

You need your lab coat in every lab, and you should have long hair tied back. They provide safety glasses for the dissections, but if you would prefer to use your own, you can bring your own.

1. Digestive System and Body Cavities (Rat Dissection) — this is probably the coolest lab of Medsci. You each get to dissect your own rat to see all the different components of the digestive system. Try to pick a rat that is skinnier rather than fatter, fat is hard to dissect through.
2. The Human Brain — in this lab you use plastinated and coronal slices of human brains to learn to identify the main features of the brain. This lab is probably the least interesting as it involves a lot of listening to the demonstrator.
3. Mammalian Heart — in this lab you will dissect a sheep heart to see all the structures you have been learning about in your heart anatomy lectures. This lab is super interesting, and unlike other heart dissections you may have done in the past.
4. Reproductive Systems — in this lab you will rotate around various stations in order to learn about different aspects of the reproductive system. This includes assembling 3D models of the male and female reproductive tracts; viewing rat testes under microscopes; studying hormone regulation of the ovarian cycle; histology of the ovary and methods of contraception. As you are rotating, time in this lab goes reasonably quickly.
5. Ventilation — in this lab you will rotate around various stations to learn about different aspects of respiratory physiology. Some of these stations involve testing yourself, which is cool to see where you sit in comparison to the rest of your class on the readings.
6. Musculoskeletal Lab — you will dissect chicken leg in order to learn about the “hamstring” muscles of the chicken thigh. I found this dissection quite challenging, but as it was a dissection, it was interesting and enjoyable. Make sure you know how to identify the different things pointed out in the lab as you will be asked to identify structures in images in the test at the end of the lab.

Your lab demonstrators are there for you to ask lots of questions, so ask!! It is important to take really good notes in the labs, as the content will be assessed in the tests that occur.

Assessment

Theory Component (90%)
- Test 1 (26%)
- Test 2 (24%)
- Final Exam (40%)

Practical Component (10%)
- Laboratories (10%)

You must get at least 50% of the lab marks to pass the course. This means you must get at least 5 marks out of the 10 allocated to the MCQs.

Test 1

This test is purely MCQ and questions are on the first four organ systems: nervous, cardiovascular, autonomic & endocrine and reproduction. There will also be questions relating to the first three labs: rat dissection, human brain, and sheep heart dissection. Labs are worth quite a bit in the test, so make sure you know the content taught and the basic method you had to follow in the dissections. There were 2 questions per lecture and 6 questions per lab. The test is 90 minutes long.

Test 2

This test is also purely MCQ and questions are on the final four organ systems: respiratory, renal, musculoskeletal and digestive. There are also questions on the final three labs: reproductive system, respiratory system and muscuoloskeletal system. Again, there are 2 questions per lecture, and 6 per lab. This test is often on the last day of classes for the year, so there isn’t much time to study for it. Make sure you are prepping a few weeks in advance. The test is 90 minutes long.

Final Exam

The final exam is purely short answer questions and may include:
- fill-in-the-blank questions
- questions which require a sentence or paragraph to answer
- questions which require you to make labelled drawings or flowcharts
As it is short answer, you must know the content really well. They do give partial marks, so make sure you give every question a go. Partial marks add up in the end and could make the difference between one grade and another. The exam tests you on all 38 lectures in the course, however, it does not test lab content. The final exam is three hours long.

Laboratories

At the end of each lab you will do a 10-question MCQ test. Your best 5 (out of 6) marks in these tests will count towards your final grade. As labs are worth 10% of the final grade, each of the 5 labs chosen to count towards your grade are worth 2%.

How I Studied

Pretty much 80–90% of my time in second semester went into studying for Medsci. I kept on top of my other subjects daily, but I definitely put the most time and effort into this paper.

For Medsci, most of the lecturers annotate the courseguides as they go. I found that I struggled to keep up and my book was really messy. So, I went and bought a second courseguide.

My two Medsci Courseguides

After each lecture, I would go home and listen to the lecture recording again on double speed just to make sure I didn’t miss anything. Then I would read the relevant parts of the textbook and add those notes into my messy courseguide. Once I finished doing this, I would get my neat courseguide and I would condense everything and copy it out. This meant I had immaculate notes that were really easy to learn from.

After this I would use CamScanner (an app I talked about in my post What’s the (h)Apps?), to scan the diagrams from my courseguide. I would use these to make flashcards which I practiced throughout the course. I would also use this process for labs.

Before the first test, I did the Mock Test — do this no matter how prepared you are! And practiced my flashcards from the relevant lectures and labs. For the second test, I just did my flashcards.

Before the final exam, I made some quick, very rushed posters that summarised everything I needed to know in each of the blocks. I also did A LOT of past exams. These are incredibly helpful as they often repeat questions or use very similar question styles over the years. There are no answers, but you can often find some on good ol’ Piazza.

If you put in time and hardwork into this subject — you can do very well! It isn’t difficult to motivate yourself to work hard in this subject as it is so interesting and so relevant to what you want to do.

Goodluck!!!