Should I take physiology before anatomy? & other dilemmas, help please.

[xsophiex]

I'm a freshmen that goes to SF state university and I want to apply for the nursing program in fall 2012. I only have a few preqs left and I really want to apply this semester. The preqs I have left are English 214 (written communication?), DFM 253 (nutrition), bio 328 (anatomy), and bio 610 (physiology). I want to take english 214, nutrition, and one of these bio classes next semester. I wanted to take bio 328 but realized that the preqs for this class are to take bio 100 and 101. The problem is that I took bio 100 (human biology) but I did not take bio 101 (human biology lab) and now I feel very stupid and upset at myself that I did not see this sooner.

I am hoping to take bio 610 next semester and bio 328 in the summer, but this is all if I am lucky enough to get the classes. I'm planning to take bio 328 in the summer at a community college. I emailed the professor if there are any preqs before taking bio 328 and she told me human biology. I asked her if that means lecture and lab, because I have already taken human biology lecture (bio 100). She told me I should be able to register with just the lecture, but I am not 100% sure about her answer. I'm going to call the community college tomorrow and ask if that really is possible.

We are only allowed to have one preq in progress the semester after we have applied, which in my case would be spring 2013.

Do you have any other suggestions for me that might be be better for my situation? Any opinions at all are greatly appreciated.

Thank you.

[ixchel]

I should preface this by saying I did A&P together, not as anatomy seperate from physiology, so I'm not likely to be the BEST person to give advice. That said.....

You could look at this two different ways. On one hand, I found learning the physiology went much more smoothly when I learned the anatomy first. When you're learning about cardiac conduction cycles, it helps to be able to already know the path of blood flow. When you're learning about urine formation, it's good to know by looking at the kidney where the proximal and distal convoluted tubes are.

However...... on the other hand, if you get the physiology stuff down, and you've truly learned it to the extent that you get an A in the class, then you've likely built the best foundation possible for an A in anatomy. Anatomy will be much easier because you'll remember how everything works together.

That said, I'd almost bet money they require anatomy before physiology. In the end, I think your larger struggle would be to take physiology first. Anatomy is just memorizing a bunch of parts. Physiology is putting them all together, understanding the biology and chemistry of it all.

[xsophiex]

I wish I could take anatomy and physiology together :/ , but I don't think that is possible at my school because it is so difficult to get classes and sophomores get last priority.

I understand what your saying that it would be helpful to take anatomy before physiology, I wish I could.

I took honors human physiology in high school my senior year, so when you talked about the pathway of blood and urine formation, it is familiar but I don't remember all the details. I still have my notebook from the class and I think looking over it would refresh my memory. Perhaps I won't be lost then? I studied really hard and put a lot of effort and got an A- in the class. I do understand that college physiology would definitely be much more extensive than high school physiology though.

Hopefully they will allow me to take physiology first?

[SopranoKris, MSN, RN, NP]

You're going to need to work with an academic advisor on this. Most schools have Anatomy as a pre-req to Physiology. Your best bet is to get advice from the source that applies to you: your school's academic advisor. Most do phone or e-mail consultations if you can't go in person during their office hours.

[willowita, ADN, RN]

Maybe I'm not following your post but I'm looking at the SF State Bio 610 info and it states that Bio 328 is a prerequisite. So you need anatomy first, right?

[xsophiex]

Unfortunately, I thought that meant either you take bio 328 or chem 101. You both are right

I want to take anatomy in the summer at a community college ( if they will offer it) while also volunteering at a hospital. Is this suicide? ( taking anatomy in the summer)

I have somewhat of a physiology background because I took human physiology senior year of high school and it did include some anatomy.

Thoughts? Opinions?

Thank you for the replies.

[willowita, ADN, RN]

Anatomy is rote memorization, for the most part. The labs can be tricky because illustrations and diagrams are nice and neat but a dissected cat or human will look different. But I think it can be done over a summer if you devote yourself to it.

Physiology will probably help with concepts since it's all about how tissues, organs, systems etc work. Anatomy is more about what everything is called and where it's at. And I do mean everything. Every hole, every bump, every region of an organ has a name. And you also learn where muscles insert and originate, which bones articulate with each other, the names of all the veins and arteries, histology, and so on.