Chem. Rxn Mechanisms in Vet School

[bclover]

This may be a stupid question, but one I have been pondering for sometime...

Just curious: right now I am only "moderately" good at recreating chem rxn mechanisms for exams, etc., in orgo and biochem. Will doing this be a part of any of the courses in vet school? In other words do I need to "nail" them now in order to do well later? Or, will we deal more with the various physiological 'cycles', including reactants, products, enzymes without necessarily knowing the details of the mechanisms?

Thanks for humoring me!

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[JIKJen124]

For what it's worth from OSU, in our cell bio class pretty much every prof. has told us that structures and the specific details of mechanisms ARE NOT important, rather the concept of what's going on.

That said, I do believe that learning them is good practice for a skill that WILL be essential in vet school. That is, memorizing seemingly ENDLESS mountains of facts. The faster and more efficient you can get at doing that, the easier your life will be in vet school.

 

[Electrophile]

For what it's worth from OSU, in our cell bio class pretty much every prof. has told us that structures and the specific details of mechanisms ARE NOT important, rather the concept of what's going on.

Agreed. For our cell bio class, the professor that taught the biochemistry section pretty much said the same thing. Some of the specifics he wants, but he was going for overall bigger picture. I think the idea is that somewhere down the road, in theory, you should be able to pull important little snippets out of your head, but it's more of a less intensive survey than my regular biochem class before vet school. Honestly, if you need to know it in practice, you'd be able to look up the details.

 

[seaturtlegirl]

My biochem professor talks "big picture", however, we really must know almost every minute detail of most pathways and reactions in order to do well in the class.....ugh.

 

[AuburnPreVet]

I wouldn't stress over it. Maybe get the practice of memorizing painful details... but you'll be re-taught the specific stuff you need to know. In our cell bio & molecular genetics class we really didn't cover a lot of mechanisms. We talked more about different types of cell receptors, transcription/translation, mutations, a million loci for coat color combinations, melanin production, cancer genetics, cdk/cyclin cascade stuff...blah. I can't say that any of my undergrad biochem helped a whole lot except for the transcription/translation stuff. Glad that is one final we're done with!!