Futbol99 Posted June 5, 2015 Report Share Posted June 5, 2015 I know this topic was brought up before a few years ago, but was hoping there would be an updated thread. I am going to need 1.5 credits of Pharm courses and these courses basically all sound the same, but I really want to know what I am getting myself into and not take a hit on these courses. Some courses I would like to get an insight on: - Clinical Pharm 4350A (Tirona, Schwarz) - Human Tox 4460A (Urquhart) - Cancer Chemo 4360 (Bhattacharya) - Natural sourced Medicine 4430B - (Lui) - Drugs of Abuse 4370 - (Chidiac) Just any opinions and thoughts for any or all above would be greatly appreciated! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BeeDoc Posted June 6, 2015 Report Share Posted June 6, 2015 I know this topic was brought up before a few years ago, but was hoping there would be an updated thread. I am going to need 1.5 credits of Pharm courses and these courses basically all sound the same, but I really want to know what I am getting myself into and not take a hit on these courses. Some courses I would like to get an insight on: - Clinical Pharm 4350A (Tirona, Schwarz) - Human Tox 4460A (Urquhart) - Cancer Chemo 4360 (Bhattacharya) - Natural sourced Medicine 4430B - (Lui) - Drugs of Abuse 4370 - (Chidiac) Just any opinions and thoughts for any or all above would be greatly appreciated! Hey! I just graduated from Western med sci so I've just recently taken a number of these courses and heard about some others so I would be happy to give you some insight into of them: Clinical Pharm 4350A: - I didn't take this course personally, but I've heard good things about it. It can be hard to get into if you're not in HSP pharm because they get priority and it tends to fill up fast. Tirona is a great prof, as you should know if you've taken Pharm 3260! Human Tox 4660A: - Urquhart is quite possibly the best professor I had in undergrad. He genuinely cares about how his students do in his class, has super clear lectures, and very fair exams. I would honestly take any course that he taught. This course itself is actually a team-taught course so you have a few lecturers throughout the term. The first lecture covers toxicokinetics (i.e. the ADME processes) and some basics of toxicology. Following this lecture, you learn about toxicology of various systems (e.g. kidney, liver, maternal-fetal, non-organ, endocrine and chemical carcinogenesis) and you also cover do a few lectures in environmental toxicology, pharmacogenetics, and forensic toxicology. - Evaluation-wise, there is a midterm (40%), a short essay (10%), and a final (50%; it was originally cumulative, but after students asked he Urquhart changed it to non-cumulative). The midterm and final are short and long answer questions, but were both very very fair exams (if you studied well you'll know the answers!). In addition to the material presented in lecture, there is also a scientific paper you're expected to read after each lecture that's also testable. The questions from the papers are pretty straightforward but you must read the paper to know the answer. - This course also tends to fill up quickly, so it can be difficult to get a spot - It was one of my favourite undergrad courses so I'd definitely recommend this course. There is however a lot of material to know for the exams. Cancer Chemo 4360 (Battacharya) - I took this course 2nd term in 4th year and found the (two) profs to be very good towards students and at teaching the material. I know a number of people that really enjoyed the course, but I found that I didn't really enjoy the material as much as I expected going in to it. The course itself is much much more (basically all of it) about the receptors and the signalling pathways involved in cancer chemotherapy than the actual pharmacology of chemotherapeutic drugs, which I didn't really enjoy. The material itself isn't very difficult though and with no midterm (instead you have in-class quizzes every few weeks) it frees up some time for other classes. - The final is quite long, since it's cumulative and is a mixture of MC, short, and long answers. I didn't find it the easiest exam, but did much better than I expected on it. The one thing that I should about the final is that during the year they keep saying the drug names aren't "too important" but some questions will ask you to describe random drugs that they mention in some detail (e.g. what it's used to treat and it's molecular target). Natural sourced medicine (4430B) - Didn't take this course, but I've briefly heard that it's not bad. I didn't take it because I've heard previously that the prof is a bit hard to understand. Drugs of Abuse 4370 (Chidiac) - Dr. Chidiac is a great prof in that he has very clear lectures (and lecture slides) and is also a really laid-back guy (not lazy, just really chill lol). He's not the most engaging speaker, but he cares about his students and is very flexible with some deadlines and missing classes (e.g. med interviews). I enjoyed the course for the most part, particularly because it doesn't focus as much on the details of individual drugs but rather focuses on the mechanisms of action of drug classes and families. However, it was also the course that I did the worst on mainly because of its evaluation scheme. The midterm is worth 25%, the final is worth 40% but there is also a presentation (25%) and participation (10%) component that are worth a significant amount of your mark. I tend to do better on exams than in presentations and participation so those components definitely dragged my mark down quite a bit. The layout of the course is that for the 1st hour of each lecture (starting with the 3rd or 4th lecture) are student presentations on an assigned topic, while the 2nd hour is a lecture by Dr. Chidiac. The midterm covers only material from Chidiac's lectures while the final is non-cumulative but covers all the student presentations and Chidiac's material from the 2nd half of the course. Because of the number of student presentations that there are, the final ends up covering quite a bit of material, but thankfully his questions on the student material is very straightforward and the material tested from his lectures is very fair. I think this is a course where getting above 80% is not difficult but getting 90%+ would be very difficult. The material itself covers the pharmacology of CNS depressants, CNS stimulants, opioids, perception-altering drugs, and also covers tolerance, withdrawal, and addiction. I really enjoyed the topics covered and found that it was very easy to understand. This is another one of those courses where it can be hard to get a spot in without priority. Hope this helps (and sorry for the gradual transition into a wall of text)! 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Futbol99 Posted June 6, 2015 Author Report Share Posted June 6, 2015 Thank you so much, this is amazing! Looks like the better courses are kind of tough to get into but hopefully things work out with scheduling. Just a shot in the dark but, did you end up taking Med sci 4200 (or whichever one is the inflammation taught by Mclean)? I took pharm 3620 and Histology 3309, but I didnt take phys 3120, so I am bit low on options for my 2 disciplines in 4th year. I have a couple anatomy courses I can also take but they don't sound like I can do well in them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BeeDoc Posted June 7, 2015 Report Share Posted June 7, 2015 Yeah, I took med sci 4200 (inflammation in diseases) in 4th year as well. It's not a bad course, but I didn't really enjoy the class very much, unfortunately. It's unique in that all the lectures are posted online prior to class and you have to watch and take notes on them before to coming to class. Class itself is pretty fun for the most part because you're just doing cased based activities and group-based activities about what you learned in the online module. Everything that's testable is in the online lectures so class is coming to class would actually be pretty useless except for the prof has pop quizzes randomly so almost nobody actually skips the class. The reason that I didn't really enjoy that course was that I found that the material tested was really dry (especially the final) since a lot of the time it felt like it was just random memorization of minutia. Another thing was that this course has a lot of individual and group projects, in addition to the midterm and final, that could be quite time consuming (I think there was something like 3 essays and 2 presentations). Some of the online lectures, which you have to do prior to each class, also took a long time (3-4 hours) to take notes for, which adds up when you have to do it every week. Overall, if you really need another science credit I wouldn't necessarily go out of my way to avoid it, but if there's another course you can take I'd look closely at the that one before choosing this med sci 4200. I also didn't take phys 3120 but took pharm 3620 and really enjoyed it, which is why I took med sci 4200 and so many pharm courses in 4th year. Also remember that these are just one person's opinions of the courses and doesn't necessarily reflect how you'll find the course. Let me know if there's anything else I can help with! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Futbol99 Posted June 7, 2015 Author Report Share Posted June 7, 2015 Amazing once again, really appreciate it! This course sounds like a major turn off with all the assignments and load of materials while other things are going on. Aside from that, how hard do you think pulling an 80+ in this course is? I think I can't avoid this which is pretty crappy considering how heavy this course is. Would you recommend taking this the semester that is not with the med sci lab and course? Thanks again! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BeeDoc Posted June 7, 2015 Report Share Posted June 7, 2015 On the bright side, it won't be the worst course that you take. I just didn't find it that great. Getting an 80+ is absolutely possible and probably won't even be too difficult. 90+ is probably doable as well, but you'll need to put in more effort. It was particularly bad because the course got busy right during interview time I would definitely recommend you do it in the semester that you don't have the other med sci courses. Those two courses also have quite a few assignments (1 a week between them). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Futbol99 Posted June 10, 2015 Author Report Share Posted June 10, 2015 Thank you so much for your invaluable help! I am not sure if its a good thing to know that the med sci course wont be the worst course I'd take tho :/ lol. Regardless thank you! haha. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BeeDoc Posted June 10, 2015 Report Share Posted June 10, 2015 Haha no problem! Happy I could help! What I mean by that it's not the worst course you'll take is that no course in 4th year is as bad as some courses you've already taken *cough*stats*cough*. Good luck in 4th year! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MD aspiration Posted June 23, 2015 Report Share Posted June 23, 2015 Any thoughts on Physiology 4730 with Cregan- Cellular signalling in Tissue Injury and Repair ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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