[shleyaa]

As I take my break from studying for anatomy, I have decided to write a review for it. Okay, so this anatomy is course I think is somewhat different compared to the kinesiology one. HTH SCI 1H06/1B07/2F03/2L03 is a mandatory course for first year nursing students and midwifery students, and second year BHsc students, and bio-engineering students. I'll break this review up into different aspects of the course...

Lectures
The anatomy lectures are...well, quite boring. Sure, the material is very interesting, but no matter who the lecturer is, you just end up trying to stay awake throughout the whole thing! Fortunately they started posting up the Powerpoints, synchronized with the audio file and all, online so you can view them at your own time and pace at home/in your dorm. I really enjoyed this aspect of it for I had no reason to go to lecture anymore! Though many people still went, so your attendance is entirely up to you.

First term dominantly consists of anatomy. Anatomy of the nervous system, musculoskeletal system, integumentary system, and endocrine system. It's alright. The bones/joints/muscles unit was DEATH, probably one of the reasons as to why many are looking forward to second term, which primarily deals with physiology. The circulatory, digestive, lymphatic, respiratory and reproductive systems will be covered.

You have 2 lectures per week and another lecture which is also referred to as the clinical case, applying the concept you've learned to some kind of medical situation. These are often quite interesting.

Professors
Depending on what lecture you have that day, your prof will vary. Dr. Ball, who I found was my favourite, is amazing. He's very concise, organized and witty when he lectures. Dr. Wainman is another favourite, probably the most optimistic and funniest prof of them all; he always manages to integrate pregnancy and baby-related concepts to everything he talks about, being that he specializes in OB/GYN. Dr. Campbell is the nursing anatomy co-ordinator. I believe she only lectured twice, and found her lectures somewhat difficult to understand...though in person, she's one of the most informative, and approachable professors I've met.

You get a couple of guest speakers for the clinical cases, but Dr. Ball, Wainman and Campbell were the main professors I've encountered in this course.

Labs
Thankfully, labs aren't like your typical chemistry or physics labs. You just go in there to touch, see, and absorb information. No lab notebook, anything written really, required! There are prelab quizzes you have to complete on WebCT before attending, though these are multiple choice and are somewhat easy if you know where to look. Labs were probably my favourite part of the week. You have one every 2 weeks, as they alternate with tutorial.

Tutorial
Err..so you know how tutorials are supposed to help you with what you've learned in lecture? I felt that these tutorials loaded you with even more work. You're given a clinical problem (with listed questions) that deals with the previous lecture. It's PBL style, so you distribute the questions among your group of 9-12 people and come back in 2 weeks to present your findings.

Tutorials are also where you write your in-class essays. These were introduced this year to the nursing students who entered the program in 2008. You're given a set of essay questions that you have to prepare for by researching relevant information and coming up with some sort of outline for it. You go into tutorial, 1 question is picked and you write about that. You get 2 per term and they're each worth 5% of your mark, so the essays are in total worth 20%. They aren't as bad as they sound.

OTHER POINTS:
- no weekly tests or quizzes
- midterms/exams test you in a conceptual manner (much like psych)

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So this review was clearly from a first year nursing student's perspective...the course differs when it comes to the midwives, engineers and health sci students. Like, for example, they have a bell ringer exam and they don't have to do the in class essays. Anyway, back to studying I go!

Some may find this course interesting, some may not. Personally, I fell asleep in 90% of the lectures, and I'd say I spent more time on this course than all of my other courses combined. Oh, and I believe the mid term average was just barely passing (after giving us two free marks). Alot of time, I felt that the course was very rushed. There was ALOT of material to cover. We had 2 lectures a week, a clinical case (a fancy word for another lecture), and 2 hours of lab or tutorial. From the labs, you take what you're willing to learn from them. There are no lab reports or anything, so often times I would just come to labs unprepared. I would pretty much just stand there for two hours, and touch cadavars thinking, "Oooo!!". The tutorials didnt seem to aid my learning and like Ashley said, it was just extra work. We had to write two in-class essays per term, and they were pretty time consuming to study for.

Ok! So second semester for this class was sooo much better than first semester in terms of interest and difficulty. The final was kinda iffy and very nitpicky, but the midterm was very straightforward and fairly simple. The structure was the same as last semester, so we had 2 essay questions to do still, but this time we had less to memorize. The questions were of a moderate difficulty, some questions were alot easier than others though. Instructors this semester were pretty awesome throughout, especially Dr. Bayer who did the cardio lectures.