BehSci BRS BS
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Loading ...I’ve said many times how disappointed I am in this class. I know it’s not a huge part of the USMLE, but it’s important in everyday life and patient care dealing with patients and their families. The course is held hostage by a “Gestalt psychotherapist” (masters level) who is nearly incomprehensible and is obviously more concerned with the more useless parts of psychology (from a medical POV) such as learning/behavior theories, psychological testing/batteries, etc. That’s of course when we aren’t watching movies like “28 Days” with Sandra Bullock to learn, say about alcoholism. Speaking of alcoholism, there is ONE (1) question on our final about it, out of I think 60 or 70. You know, because alcoholism is a minor disease and isn’t presented frequently in clinical settings, unlike other critical factors with higher medical importance, like psychological testing and DSM IV axes, which together represent 10x more questions.
So I escape the insanity of her slides and try to make sense of that which I know is missing, get some perspective (while still dancing like a monkey trying to do well on my final), and I come across this in the Board Review Series in Behavioral Science, 2nd ed pp142-144 (1994) in the chapter on relating to minorities and families (emphases below appear as printed):
- As a group, Hispanic Americans place great value on the nuclear family and on large families.
- Mexican Americans are called Chicanos, especially in the Southwest where most live
- Mexican Americans often seek health care from folk healers known as curanderos. Treatment by curanderos includes magic, herbal medicines, or specific changes in diet.
- “Hot” and “cold” influences are believed to result in illness (eg. rheumatic fever is a hot illness)
What the f*ck is this crap? We’re talking about Mexican Americans here, not indigenous immigrants from the mountains of Mexico. Curanderos are, of course, a part of Mexican and Mexican American culture, but it is beyond irresponsible to say most seek medical help from curanderos to receive herbs and spiritual healing. Since Latinos make the largest minority in the US and Mexican Americans make up the largest % among them by far, that would make curanderos easily searchable with large ads in any urban yellow pages if this were remotely true. As for being called Chicanos, if anyone called anybody that were I grew up, you got labeled some Che-loving radical AT BEST and got your ass kicked at worst. That is a highly specific California/Southwest US term and is nearly synonymous with political activism, not ethnic identity. “Texicans” are not politicallty active in the same way as those wingnut Californians; we just want to be left alone to chillax. (chill + relax) Oh, and I love how the BRS just sort of slides in “where most live,” like we have some kind of beaner tropism (“Here is just the right minerals in the soil and warmth from the sun to allow optimal Chicano growth”) Ok, so I’m being hypersensitive now, but it’s the whole class, subject, everything.
I know the BRS has to focus on basics often without a context, but I really, really expected more (or just omit if there’s nothing intelligent to say) from a medical school study guide in the 90s.
Just to spread the love, here are other quotes, written verbatim from the same pages [with my comments]:
- Among black Americans, the condition of the blood is considered important. “High blood” is thought to be caused by rich foods, and “low blood” is thought to result in sumptoms such as tiredness. [as such, this explains why we give blacks "blood tests:" to placate their superstitious nonsense thinking that high or low blood levels of substances have anything to do with disease]
- In some groups of black Americans, hexes and voodoo imposed by the anger of a friend or relative are believed to cause illness. [as can be seen in any inner city where street gangs kill chickens and sacrifice goats to increase their street cred]
- Americans of Jewish descent are more likely than other groups to report their medical problems and visit physicians for help. [Yes folks, it's the stereotypical whiny Jew that the BRS is warning you about before you have to deal with them in the hospital. This was the ONLY Jewish mention, so this their one-sentence "redux" ]
It looks like as a whole, the entire subject is screwed when you can’t even get mainstream medical publications on this to be free of tripe. It’s good that I really don’t care much anymore. I mean, this week I have probably studied maybe 8 hours total, and it hasn’t been good studying. Last night, I was dividing my time between BS and Splinter Cell, and today, well, I’m writing this post, aren’t I? 
Until I review in a year or so for Step 1, this is the end of my BS experience. Thank God.
Medical School | enrico | 
April 28, 2006 11:17 am
By Gold Star M.S., April 28, 2006 @ 2:15 pm
It’s ok, i’m currently whining about my finals period here in Israel. I’ve got the 2000 brs, I’ll let you know if I remember if there are any changes to it. My final for bs is in July. Mazel Tov = Congrats on the kid.
By Punchberry, April 28, 2006 @ 3:10 pm
I’ll be taking the beh sci shelf exam, so thanks for the review! I will be sure to memorize these and the rest of the mix of offensive and irrelevant comments in the BRS. The thing is, this class just tries to do too much. To master the material (learning theory, cognitive, psychiatric disorders, development, etc) you would have to have a degree in psychology. (And this doesn’t even account for the medical skills this class is supposed to cover, such as the dr-pt relationship, ethics, epidemiology, interviewing, screening for abuse, etc, etc, etc.)
By enrico, April 29, 2006 @ 3:01 pm
I wish we had shelf exams here. As with any med school, any indiviudal professor can skew the questions on the university exam to their liking/research interest, etc. but shelf exams provide a high-level, objective target to aim for. I agree completely that the class is way too broad and not nearly focused enough on clinical application. It should really be two courses: behavioral science proper, which covers the basics, stats, etc. and something more of a “basic psychiatry” which would go into the pathophysiology of various known mental dz and their medical treatments. I guess they figure you’ll learn the latter on a psych rotation when/if the time comes you pick one.