Course Administration

Course Objectives

 This course is designed to provide the first year medical student with fundamental principles and concepts regarding the normal function of the major human organ systems.  These principles and concepts are presented at both the cellular and organ system levels.  As you proceed through the course it will become apparent that the predominant principle of physiology is integration of the mechanisms for homeostasis.  A strong foundation in physiology is essential for the practicing physician to understand the overall function or dysfunction of an individual.  By course end, you should be well-equipped to apply the knowledge acquired to clinical situations.  Our goal is to continually improve Medical Physiology such that the student’s abilities to comprehend, apply, and retain key physiological concepts are maximized.

 Faculty

 Course Director

 The Course Director is immediately responsible for all aspects of the course.  He designed the course schedule and directly oversees the preparation, administration, and grading of all exams, quizzes, and presentations.  The Course Director is responsible for handling student concerns including exam challenges, scheduling conflicts, etc.  You should contact the Course Director first to discuss/resolve any questions or concerns you have about the course (e.g. grades, examinations, other concerns, etc.)The course director is:

Marcas M. Bamman, PhD
Associate Professor, Department of Physiology and Biophysics
Director, Core Muscle Research Laboratory
Geriatric Research, Education, and Clinical Center
VA Medical Center, room 8220
558-7064
mbamman@physiology.uab.edu

 Dr. Bamman has taught in Medical Physiology for 7 years and has served as Course Director for 4 years.  He welcomes your input, maintaining an “open door” or “open inbox” policy, and he has the experience to manage most all student concerns.

 Chairman

 Ultimate responsibility for the course lies with the Chairman of the Department of Physiology and Biophysics.  You should feel free to communicate with him directly on any issue concerning the course:

Dale J. Benos, PhD
Professor and Chair
Department of Physiology and Biophysics
McCallum, room 704
934-6220
benos@physiology.uab.edu

These are the individuals you should contact if you have specific questions concerning the subject matter covered in a given lecture or small group session.

Marcas M. Bamman, PhD
VA Medical Center, room 8220
558-7064
mbamman@physiology.uab.edu

Dale J. Benos, PhD

McCallum, room 704

934-6220

benos@physiology.uab.edu

Kathleen H. Berecek, PhD
McCallum, room 988
934-2411
berecek@uab.edu

Mark O. Bevensee, PhD
McCallum, room 846
975-9084
bevensee@physiology.uab.edu

Catherine M. Fuller, PhD
McCallum, room 830
934-6227
fuller@physiology.uab.edu

F. Shawn Galin, PhD
McCallum, room 880
934-6687
galin@physiology.uab.edu

Gilbert Hageman, PhD
University of Cincinnati
513-558-7495
gilbert.hageman@uc.edu

James E. Johnson, MD
BDB, room 398
934-5400
jej@uab.edu

Kevin L. Kirk, PhD
McCallum, room 982B
934-3122
kirk@physiology.uab.edu

Lori L. McMahon, PhD
McCallum, room 964
934-3523
mcmahon@physiology.uab.edu

Joseph B. Philips III, MD
New Hillman Building, room 525
934-4680
jphilips@peds.uab.edu

James A. Schafer, PhD
McCallum, room 834
934-7106
jschafer@uab.edu

Erik Schwiebert, PhD
McCallum, room 740
934-6234
eschwiebert@physiology.uab.edu

C. Roger White, PhD

Ziegler, room 1046
934-1296
crwhite@uab.edu

Time and Location

Lectures begin Wednesday, 03 January and continue through Monday, 05 March 2007.  The final comprehensive exam will be held on Friday, 16 March 2007.  In general, lectures are scheduled from 10-11:50a.  Small group sessions occurring on Wednesdays are scheduled from 1:15-3:05p and small group sessions on Thursdays are from 1-2:50 pm.  All exams are scheduled from 9:00a-12:00p.  Please refer to the course calendar for the exact dates and times.

Lectures take place in Lecture Room E and exams take place in Lecture Rooms D and E of Volker Hall.  For each small group, the class will be divided into 12 groups of approximately 13-14 students.  Groups 1-6 will attend the Wednesday sessions and groups 7-12 will attend the Thursday sessions.  The small group to which you are assigned will be posted on the Medical Physiology website.

Cellular phones, pagers, PDAs, and any other electronic devices must be either turned off or switched to an inaudible setting during all lectures and small group sessions.

Texts

 Suggested Readings:

 Medical Physiology, 1^st edition, W.F. Boron and E.L. Boulpaep, editors, Saunders, 2003

 Physiology, 4^th edition, L.S. Costanzo, Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, 2003

 Additional Readings (on reserve at Lister Hill Library):

 Pulmonary Physiology, 6^th edition, M.G. Levitzky, McGraw Hill, 2003
                **4 copies on reserve**
Textbook of Medical Physiology, 11^th edition; A.C. Guyton and J.E. Hall, editors, Saunders, 2000
                **2 copies on reserve**
Essential Medical Physiology, 3^rd ed., L.R. Johnson, editor, Academic Press, 2004
                **15 copies of renal chapters on reserve in spiral-bound soft cover**
An Introduction to Membrane Transport and Bioelectricity, J.H. Byrne and S.G. Schultz, 1988
                **1 copy on reserve**

 Handouts—You will receive additional handout materials in your mailboxes.  If you are registered as a graduate student for this course, you will need to contact the LRC (VH G68, 4-5296) to obtain a mailbox.

 Attendance

 Attendance at all lectures is strongly recommended, but it is not mandatory.  Participation in small group sessions is required.

 If circumstances arise that may prevent you from taking an exam at the scheduled time, you should inform Dr. Bamman immediately.  A letter from Dr. H. Hughes Evans, Associate Dean for Students, is required, stating that your absence is to be excused for medical or other compelling reasons.  It is the student’s responsibility to request this letter, which must be sent directly from Dr. Evans to Dr. Bamman.

Student Evaluation

 Student performance will be evaluated in 3 categories:  A) Exams; B) Small Group Quizzes; and C) Cell Biology and Physiology in Medicine Disease Presentation.

A.     Exams

 There are three sources of material from which examination questions may be drawn:

1.      Material in lectures

2.      Material in faculty handouts and specifically assigned readings

3.      Material in Small Group Sessions

 Three exams (3 multiple-choice questions per lecture hour, 1 question per small group session) plus one comprehensive final exam are scheduled.  Students should note that some instructors might choose to use short answer/essay questions in addition to multiple choice questions.  Three hours will be allotted for each of the exams.  Students are required to return the exam booklet at the end of each exam.  The answer key will be posted on the Medical Physiology website shortly after the exam.  Exam scores are calculated by dividing the number of correct answers by the number of test items, multiplied by 100.  Each exam will account for 21% of the final grade.

 Please note that cellular phones, pagers, PDAs, and other electronic devices will not be allowed in the exams.  In the event that you need the use of a calculator, the exam proctor in each lecture room will have some available.  Use of your personal calculator will be at the sole discretion of the course director.

 Challenges to Exam Questions

 Written challenges to exam questions will not be accepted.  As soon as the exams are graded, the course director will check the exam report for questions that are potentially keyed incorrectly and contact the instructor so that any problems can be rectified immediately.

 Following each exam, the course director and/or instructors who provided questions will hold a review session.  During this session they will review the exam questions and the most appropriate response to each question, and students may orally challenge an exam question.  Please note that occasions may arise in which the correct or best answer to an instructor’s question is not in agreement with the text(s).  Such a discrepancy may arise due to an error or over-simplification in the text(s).  If the instructor had presented the correct or best answer to the question in his/her lectures or other materials, a challenge to the question will not be accepted.  Post-exam review sessions will be held at noon approximately 3 days after each exam.

 After all challenges and/or errors have been resolved and all students have completed a given exam, the exam with answer key will be on reserve in the LRC for review.  Please do not copy exams on reserve in the LRC as the exams are closed.  Copying of exams or individual questions from an exam is an Honor Code Violation.

B.    Small Group Sessions

 For the purposes of the small group sessions, the class has been divided into 12 groups of approximately 13-14 students each.  Each group will have a facilitator.  Please note that the small group sessions are not additional lectures and substantial student participation is expected.  Also note that both the nature of the small group sessions and the questions addressed vary from session to session.  Small group sessions may address basic science problems, clinical scenarios, or an integrated combination of the two.  Some small group sessions are designed to reinforce material presented in the lectures while others are designed to introduce new material.  The questions addressed within the small group sessions are designed to encourage you to research your answers and discuss them during the sessions.  Following the conclusion of each small group session, answers to the questions will be posted on the Medical Physiology website and/or distributed by email.

 At the start of each small group session a short quiz will be given.  The quizzes are designed to encourage you to research the questions that will be addressed in the small group session and to review lecture and/or other assigned material relevant to the session prior to your attendance.  The quizzes will be based upon either the questions to be addressed during the session or material with which you should be familiar in order to answer the questions addressed during the session.  There will be 6 small group sessions and therefore 6 quizzes.  The average of 6 quiz scores will account for 3% of the final grade in the course (each quiz accounting for 0.5%).

 As noted above there will be one question per each small group session on the exams.

 C. Student Presentation “Cell Biology and Physiology in Medicine”

 In 2000, Medical Physiology joined Medical Cell and Tissue Biology in mentoring student research presentations.  This has been very well-received by both students and faculty and will be continued again this year.  The grade you receive for your presentation will comprise a component of your final grade in both Medical Physiology and Medical Cell and Tissue Biology.  In Medical Physiology, the presentation will equate to 13% of the final grade.  Specific details on “Cell Biology and Physiology in Medicine” will be presented at noon on Friday, 05 January 2007.

 Calculation of the Final Course Grade

 Each student must achieve a grade of ³69.5% for the cumulative average of the written examinations and small group quizzes of the course to demonstrate that he/she has successfully mastered the course material.  A passing grade will not be calculated unless the average exam score and average quiz score combined are ³69.5%.  The presentation grade will not contribute to a student’s final grade if he/she has not achieved an average grade of ³69.5% on the composite score from written examinations and small group quizzes.

 Your understanding of the core physiology concepts presented in this course will be evaluated on 3 “block” exams and again on the 4^th exam, which is a cumulative final exam.  Based on a recent data analysis, student performance on these exams may be a valuable predictor of future success in medical school.  Exam scoring data collected from 2000 to 2005 in this course reveal a poor prognosis for students who fail (i.e., <69.5%) 2 of the 4 exams, even if the cumulative average of all 4 exams exceeds the minimum requirement of ³69.5%.  Typically only 4-5 students fall into this category per year, as the large majority of students perform well in this course.  Among these few students, however, 32% were placed on academic probation, 23% had difficulty passing the Step 1 board exam (repeated 1 or more times), and 14% were either dismissed or resigned.

 The course director and core faculty will make every effort to help you succeed in this course.  At the conclusion of each exam, any student with a score <69.5% will be contacted by the course director with the aim of improving the student’s comprehension and/or preparedness for the next exam.  Regardless of exam performance, you are encouraged to contact the course director or core faculty at any time if you have questions or concerns regarding your comprehension of course material.

 Exams                                    21% x 4                                                84%

 Small Groups                          0.5% x 6                                                 3%

 Presentation                           13%                                                      13%

 Total                                                                                                  100%

Medical Students

Course grades for medical students will be assigned according to the new pass/fail grading system; whereby each student will receive a grade of P or F (course average <69.5%).

 Graduate Students

For graduate students, letter grades will be assigned according to the following % scale:

 Final grades are subject to the approval of the Physiology Teaching Committee and, for medical students only, the School of Medicine Student Promotion and Academic Standing Committee.  The Physiology Teaching Committee reserves the right to add or subtract points (commonly known as assigning a curve).

 Students with an F grade may be allowed to remediate through an out-of-state summer course or other forms of remediation that will be determined on an ad hoc basis by the course director and chairman of the Department of Physiology and Biophysics, and presented to the School of Medicine Pre-Clinical Academic Subcommittee for approval.  Students with failing or marginal grades on one or more exams may be encouraged (but not required) to seek remediation as well, in an effort to better prepare them for the remainder of their training.  The directors of the graduate programs set rules for graduate students regarding remediation.

 Additional Review Sessions

 The course director will work with the students to arrange additional review sessions either before or after an exam if deemed necessary.  The course representatives should contact the course director to arrange these sessions.

Medical Physiology Website

 The course website can be accessed at:

http://medical.physiology.uab.edu

 We encourage you to make use of the Medical Physiology website.  The site contains the course calendar, faculty email addresses, lecture outlines, small group session materials, some practice quizzes, and links to other relevant sites.  The course website is password protected.  To access it—

                                                            User name = physiology\mp
                                                            Password = 2007

 The course director has instructed each of the lecturers to post his/her lecture slides in the secure portion of the website as PowerPoint presentations at least 3 days prior to a given lecture.  We hope you will find this useful.  As a result of the Fair Use Policy pertaining to copyrighted materials, we will not provide students with printed handouts of the slides presented in each lecture.

 If you have any suggestions for improving the Medical Physiology website, please feel free to contact the course director.

Course Announcements/Communication

In addition to announcements during lecture periods, most course announcements will be distributed by email.  For the past few years, Dr. Bamman has utilized email as the primary means of disseminating general announcements as well as content-specific student queries with the instructors’ responses.  Past students have preferred this over postings to an online discussion page.  If you have a specific content question, please email the content instructor.  The instructor will send your query with his/her response to the course director for dissemination.  Past students have largely appreciated receiving these summaries of queries and instructor responses.  However, for students not interested in reviewing content queries/responses, note that all emails of this type will specify “student queries” in the subject line so individual students may screen/delete these emails if they wish.

Course and Small Group Session Evaluations

 Student evaluations of all aspects of the Medical Physiology course are extremely important in determining the effectiveness of the course, and your opinions are greatly valued.  You are required to complete the electronic course evaluation form that is administered through the Office of Curriculum Development and Management (CDM).

 Equally as important is your evaluation of each small group session.  Immediately following each small group session, a brief online evaluation will be available for the session and its facilitators.  These online evaluations will be administered through CDM.  Each evaluation will be available until 5 pm on the Tuesday immediately following the small group session.  Please take the time to complete these evaluations as they provide us with valuable insight toward continued improvement of the course.

 The evaluations can be accessed from the Medical Physiology website or directly via emails you will receive from CDM.

Course Modifications for 2007

 Our goal is to continually improve Medical Physiology such that the student’s abilities to comprehend, apply, and retain key physiological concepts are maximized.  To this end, the course director reviews student evaluations on an annual basis and meets with the student course representatives to discuss modifications for improvement.  Following is a summary of changes for 2007 based on student feedback and on the course director’s documentation throughout the 2006 course:

 Small Group Sessions

1. The primary student concern was that 2 of the small group sessions occurred in the exam block succeeding the block during which the pertinent material was presented and tested.  The schedule was adjusted in 2006 based on 2005 student feedback such that small groups in 2006 were scheduled after all or nearly all of the pertinent lectures were completed.  To meet this student request, 2 small groups associated with lecture blocks that occurred at the end of an exam block slipped into the next exam block.  This could not be avoided in meeting the 2005 student request.  However, an overwhelming majority of 2006 students preferred reverting back to the previous schedule (all small groups occurring during the appropriate exam block).  The schedule for 2007 was therefore modified again to meet this request.
2. Perhaps the number one student comment was in reference to apparent discrepancies among facilitators across the 12 small groups within a given week.  There was some concern that the role of facilitator may have been handled differently across the groups such that group A may have received more of a lecture format while group B was more interactive.  In response, the course director will again (as in 2006) urge each small group leader to hold a meeting in advance with all of his/her facilitators to review the cases/problems and to offer suggestions on how to facilitate the sessions in order to better engage the students.  The course director plans to attend each of these preliminary meetings.

Cardiovascular Physiology

Dr. Hageman (retired faculty member) had taught the cardiovascular physiology section for 30+ years through 2005, but did not teach in 2006.  A large number of students in 2006 requested the return of Dr. Hageman.  Dr. Bamman and Dr. Benos have secured Dr. Hageman’s participation for this block in 2007.