A&P II before A&P I ?

Nursing Students Pre-Nursing

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Specializes in Certified Nurse Midwife.

I am just beginning pre-reqs and sat down with my advisor to plan my courses.

She put me in A&P II before A&P I because that is what is offered in Spring (so I can begin it now at the end of January) and I will be taking A&P I next Fall (it is only offered in the Fall).

I asked her if that is ok and she said it is, because they cover different body systems.

Anyone else did this?

Will I be ok?

Thanks-in-advance for your assistance...

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You can't take A&P II before A&P I...You will learn the very basics of A&P in the first course and more advanced physiology in the second course. Your advisor obviously isn't very familiar with how nursing prerequisites work. You would be so utterly confused in A&P II if you took it first. It would be like learning the whole subject backwards. Go talk to an other advisor and have this problem fixed.

EDIT -

To add to my original post...The specific reason this wouldn't work is because in A&P II, they assume that you already know/remember all the material from A&P I, so there would be an array of material that you wouldn't be familiar with in order to do well in the class.

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Specializes in ICU.

Depends on the school.

At mine you could definitely take A&P II first because it was done by body systems.

The "basics" were covered in biology.

I did it that way, I think A&P I was offered at a conflicting time. No issues.

So maybe that advisor isn't clueless after all..

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@vera4130 - I didn't realize there were schools that did that. At my school, they didn't make us take general biology if we took a whole year of it in high school. My A&P classes were by body systems too, but the school wouldn't let you take A&P II before A&P I. And after taking both of those classes, even though its done by body system there was still info from A&P I that I couldn't have gotten by without in A&P II. But I guess it all varies by school. I've never heard of people taking A&P II before A&P I until now so I just immediately thought it was a mistake on the advisors part.

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Specializes in Neuro, Telemetry.

Just want to add that at my school API is a pre req to AP II. But at my school from forever ago, it didn't matter.

I guess it depends on how the school has the material taught. In my current school, AP is separated into body systems, but it starts with histo, then all the other body systems in some way refer back to histo. Without learning histo in the API we would be a little lost in APII. Also some of the body processes are overviewed in API and not in APII. But at my old school, API was really just anatomy and APII was just physiology. IMO anantomy should either be learned before physiology or concurrently, but the school didn't care which order you learned it in and could take APII before API. Weird but whatev.

OP email the instructor and ask them. THey will know if its appropriate to take II before I.

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We have to take our classes in a specific order at FDTC.

Also, the things I learned in Bio 210 helped me in 211 because it linked the info together.

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Specializes in ICU.

We have to take A&P I before II. While yes they do cover different systems, you need to know I first. A&P I covers the bones, muscles, the basic concepts to life. Then in II you cover the systems of the body. So you need to understand I to get II in my opinion. Plus at my school you have to take I before you can take micro. I think that is a huge help to passing that class.

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Specializes in Psychiatry, Oncology.

In all colleges in our area (NE) A&P I is a prerequisite for A&P II. Although I think it is possible to do anything, I believe it is very helpful to know how the body is organized before you learn how it works.

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I would ask the professor, or if one isn't assigned for the course yet, any professor that teaches those classes. We had to take I before II, however ours just covered different material, so I would have been fine taking II before I. If it's not written that I is a prereq to II, it is probably ok.

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Specializes in Hospice, Palliative Care.

Good day:

I agree with talking with the professor face-to-face to get a feel for how well you might do. If you had a human biology course recently, it might not be too bad... but there are a lot of concepts learned in A&P 1 that apply to 2 that you would miss out on potentially making the course harder than it should be for you.

Thank you.

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My classes were progressive. So everything built the foundation for what was to come. There is no way that I would have been successful had I taken the courses out of sequence. And we did learn A&P by body systems. Considering that getting amitted to nursing school is so competitive, I would definitely talk to the professor about the class. Also, my college had general advisors and degree specific advisors. Make sure that you are speaking to someone that is familiar with the nursing program, they tend to keep up to date with all the current requirements.

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Specializes in Certified Nurse Midwife.

Thank you, everyone, for your responses!

It seems that it's different for different schools.

I will triple-check with mine...

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