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

ixchel · Mar 25, 2012

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 · Mar 25, 2012

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 · Mar 26, 2012

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 · Mar 26, 2012

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 · Mar 27, 2012

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? :uhoh3:

Thank you for the replies.

willowita, ADN, RN · Mar 27, 2012

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.