“How to Survive” Guide – Structure: Histology 2

HOW TO SURVIVE
Histology

Image taken from: http://plaza.umin.ac.jp/~web-hist/gloms.jpg

 SPRING
2009
TABLE OF CONTENTS

Hello everyone!

Welcome to histology, the land of purple and blue. These are the colors you’ll be
looking at through a microscope for the next month, so we hope you like them.
This class is quite fast-paced, but studying for it is pretty straightforward. Here’s
what this short survival guide contains.

Topic Pages
Introduction to Histology 3

How to Study- It’s Pretty Straightfoward 3

Lab- It’s Different from Anatomy 4

Exams! 5

Miniboard! 6

Additional Advice from Upper Years 7

Textbooks 8

How to Survive: Structure – Histology

Samuel Anandan (Class of 2008)
Shamyla Farrukh (Class of 2009)
Ayanna Lewis (Class of 2009)
Charlie Lu (Class of 2009)
Prathyusha Yeturu (Class of 2010)
Kathy Zhang (Class of 2009)
Moury Sultana (Class of 2010)
Zubhair Hasan (Class of 2010)
Jennifer Aquino (Class of 2010)

INTRODUCTION TO HISTOLOGY

This survival guide is going to be a lot shorter than previous guides, because this
class is quite straightforward. It’s fast-paced, requires a good amount of studying,
but the tests are pretty straightforward, and the miniboard is pretty fair as well.
This is almost like anatomy on a much smaller scale. You’re going to be looking at
little purple and blue cells with little dots inside them, different types of epithelial
cells all over your body’s surface, etc. At the time, it may not seem important, but
this stuff has already shown up again in general pathology, so try to learn as
much of it as possible. It’s not as draining as anatomy, but requires that you keep
up with the material, which is almost a chapter a day.
Another benefit is that Dr. Kierszenbaum’s textbook crams a lot of stuff into those
nearly 700 pages. You’ll find stuff from biochemistry, physiology, immunology,
pathology, and even neuroscience, and I’ve looked back at the book during those
other classes. The main drawback is that, since the book covers these areas in
considerable detail, it can be a lot to get through and learn when reading it. I
thought the book wasn’t the greatest during histology, but in hindsight, it’s a
really good book. Please try and learn as much as possible in this class, it’ll help
out later on.

HOW TO STUDY – IT’S PRETTY STRAIGHTFOWARD

Advice from Ayanna Lewis, Shamyla Farrukh, and Prathyusha Yeturu

Histology is one of those courses where the details are just as important as
the concepts. Use the textbook as your main study tool for the class and for
understanding the background for lab. When you study for this course make sure
you pay close attention to all details, because that is what you will be tested on.
However, this may be difficult to do because is there is just so much detail in
every topic.

So to help with this after you have studied the textbook, sit down and make
charts for yourself, from memory, that compare and contrast similar items that
you read about. For example the blood has many different types of cells that
share certain characteristics like having a specific color, size, nuclear shape etc.
All of these are characteristics you need to know for every cell, so creating these
charts should make it easier to see where these similar blood cells differ.
Afterwards, be sure to check your chart against the textbook to make sure that
everything is correct. You may also want to draw certain structures from memory
and check it against an actual slide, if you are having trouble identifying
structures. This is particularly helpful because histology is such a visual
course and it’s important that you can create in your mind a very strong mental
image.

Before class, it helps a lot if you spend some time skimming the chapter
summaries for the topics that will be covered for that day. This way when you get
into class you know what to expect from the lecturer. Then when you read the
textbook you will be better able to identify what will be stressed on the exams.

Advice from Samuel Anandan

There’s really not much to say on how to study for this class. The main advice is
to read the textbook. Other sources, like BRS, can be of help in reviewing, but
the book is seriously all you need to pass this class. Know the book well, and the
exams and miniboard should be fine. For the exams, which will be discussed
shortly, there are microscope pictures there, but if you look at the atlas and slides
during lab, and look at the histologic images in the book, it should be fine.

The pictures are great in the textbook, so for review, you can just look through
those, as they’re chock full of information themselves, and really are well
illustrated. Don’t make the mistake I did by taking histo lightly. The fast pace is
something you really need to keep up with, and you don’t want to ruin your
summer studying for this again. Once again, definitely read the textbook
carefully, and that’s about it!

Advice from Kathy Zhang

The tests included a few electron micrograph questions on the first exam, and
since people didn’t take them that seriously, it bore more and more weight in the
exams, taking up half the practical portion on the last 2 exams. It’s really
straightforward, and it gets you easy points, so make sure to study them well.
The main thing for histo is to keep up with the work and to study every day. Out
of anatomy, histo and neuro, though anatomy is the most physically draining,
histo has the fastest pace, and to not keep up can put you in a shaky position
before you even know it, so try to stay on top of your work from the very first
day.

LAB – IT’S DIFFERENT FROM ANATOMY

Advice from Samuel Anandan

Histology lab is quite different from anatomy lab. In anatomy, the body was your
3-D textbook, and you really needed to learn a lot from lab, or at least that’s how I
found it. In histology, the slides supplement your reading and stuff, but you can
learn just as well from the atlas, textbook, and other sources. Lab is really what
you bring to it. There are faculty TAs, including Dr. Gresik, Dr. Tres, Dr. Yu, and
another Dr. Yu. They are really helpful, but lab is really what you make of it. For
the first two tests, I really didn’t pay attention in lab, but I did pay attention for
the third test, and it was quite helpful. In your lab handbook, there’ll be a
discussion of what’s on the slides, including what you should look for. Try to find
all the stuff listed there, and if you have trouble, ask the TAs. The stuff you have
to identify can come up as questions on the practical portion of the exam, but
usually they are secondary questions, more on that in a bit.

In lab, you have your own microscope, but you have to share a slide box with a
lab partner. You’re split up into three groups based on last name, but you can
choose your own lab partner. The atlas we used last year was the one by Gartner
and Hiatt, but it appears you have another recommended atlas. Which ever one
works best for you, use that, and try to find all the stuff you need to. But
remember that most of the important, high-yield type of identification stuff would
be in the textbook, so again, that’s your main source of information for this
class.

Advice from Ayanna Lewis, Shamyla Farrukh, and Prathyusha Yeturu

For the lab portion of the exam make sure you pay attention in lab. Preparation
for lab is essential for getting the most out of lab when you are there. Before you
get into lab take the time to look at pictures relevant to the material to be
covered that day. The textbook has a bunch of really great ones with really good
descriptions too. Another great source of pictures with descriptions is the
University of Iowa website (you’ll get the actual web address in your lab manual).
Whichever you use make sure you are consistent about prepping before lab.
Everything will make more sense if you do.

Once in lab you and your partner should read through the lab manual and identify
all of the structures the lab manual highlights on the slides. Use your textbook as
a reference during lab to see what the structures should look like under the
microscope. If you are having trouble finding a particular structure ask a TA for
help. Finally, make sure you pay attention when the TA’s go over the
electromicrographs (they are pictures of highly magnified structures) in class. The
TA’s will highlight what structures are important to know for the test.

EXAMS!

The histology exams are fair and not so bad if you really read the chapters
carefully and pay attention. This is something I learned more or less the hard way,
as I didn’t study as hard as I should’ve the first test or two, and if you don’t know
the material, the tests can be very challenging. And why is that? Because the
questions are a sort of double whammy, in that you need to know multiple facts
just to answer one question. For example, you could be asked something like this-

Which is true of neutrophils?

a. They are a type of white blood cell (WBC) and stain purple on H&E preparations.
b. They are a type of red blood cell (RBC) and stain pink on H&E preparations.
c. They are a type of WBC and stain pink on H&E preparations.
d. They are a type of RBC and stain purple on H&E preparations.
e. They are the least abundant type of WBC and stain blue on H&E preparations.

TEXTBOOKS
Now, you may see this question, and know that a neutrophil is the most abundant
type of white blood cell. However, unless you studied the types of staining, you
may not recall what color they stain as, and this question now becomes a
guessing game. With histo, it’s almost an all-or-none type of learning. You have to
know almost all the material in his book, or you can get tricked on questions
like these, which are kind of like two questions (asking you what neutrophils are,
and asking you how they stain) combined in one. By the way, the answer above
should be C, but you can double check that as you study J.

There’s also a practical portion to the exam. However, you won’t be actually
looking into microscopes for this part. Instead, you get a nice, high-quality color
section with pictures of histological sections, and there’ll be a question or few for
each picture. Usually, if I remember right, these questions were secondary. So,
you may have a picture of a sarcomere, with a question like this-

The highlighted structure-

a. Consists of thin filaments only.
b. Consists of both thick and thin filaments.
c. Consists of thick filaments only.
d. Contains titin.
e. Contains CapZ.
This question may not be the best example, but it illustrates the basic point that,
although you may know that the highlighted region is the A band, you have to
know more about it in order to answer the question. You can cram the atlas or
textbook pictures beforehand and simply remember that the A band is in the
middle of a sarcomere, but taking time to read that the A band is where muscle
contraction occurs because of the interaction of light and heavy filaments will get
you to the right answer, which should be B. So, just memorizing little purple dots
or blue lines on a slide won’t always help you with these practical questions.

The electron micrographs in the textbook “Ultrastructure” are very good to

review for the test. Just looking at the relevant electronmicrographs and
descriptions the day before the test should be enough to help to identify those
structures on the exam. This is an expensive book though, about $90, so you
probably would want to share a copy with a friend or a group of people.

The basic thing about these histo exams is that they’re tricky if you don’t know
your material fully, but if you do, they’re fairly straightforward. So, once again,
and I can’t reiterate this enough, please read the book very well, it’ll help on
both the written and practical portions, and make your life a lot easier come
miniboard time.

MINIBOARD!

Advice from Charlie Lu

This is the only class you’ll take this semester that you don’t need to do additional
studying for the miniboard. Dr. Kierzenbaum’s tests will be much harder than the
miniboard questions. You’ll only need to worry about reviewing, which can simply
be done the 1 week between the class final and the miniboard. One thing you
shouldn’t forget to focus on for the miniboard are the lab questions. I remember
this being the hardest part simply because I couldn’t identify the pictures. Pretest
has good lab questions & I’m sure you can find additional sources online.

Advice from Samuel Anandan

Speaking of the miniboard, this may very well be the easiest miniboard you’ll
take for a while. It does include cell biology, which you last saw in Molecules to
Cells, but the textbook covers all the relevant cell biology, and if you feel the need
to review it, BRS has it in there as well. Most review books should have a good cell
biology section as well, since medical cell biology is usually taught with histo, I
think. For the miniboard, reading the textbook and mastering the material during
the class should be enough to pass comfortably. Before the miniboard, I’d
recommend looking at the pictures in each chapter again, and maybe read BRS
for a quick review, and do those questions, including the comprehensive exam at
the end. But this really shouldn’t be the miniboard to worry about. Don’t take it
too lightly, but don’t stress out too much over it either. Study well in class, and
this should be fine.

ADDITIONAL ADVICE FROM UPPER YEARS

Advice from Zubhair Hasan

The hardest part of histology for me was the lab component. I felt that the lab
time itself did not correlate well with the lab portion of the exams. To help with
this, upper years recommended looking at Youtube videos called, “Shotgun
Histology.” The narrator looks at slides similar to ours and discusses them, so you
know what you’re looking at and in what context. Combined with reading the
slides on the website cited in the lab manual really helped me improve on the lab
portion of the exams. As for the written portions, I found that reading the
textbook a few times over really enforced concepts. What I did to make sure I
paid particular attention to every detail was to take detailed notes on the chapter;
this forced me to learn material and repeat it a few times. When it came time for
review, I just re-read my notes, since the textbook could be too dense for a
review.

Advice from Moury Sultana

Histology sucked. It is a well-taught course and it's also boring. Dr. Keirszenbaum
is an awesome lecturer and his book is Gold. Unfortunately the topic is not as
thrilling as anatomy and the lab time gets to be annoying because it's just looking
at slides for like 2 and half hours. Everyone is going to tell you to read the book
because the book is all you ever need for histology. So push yourself to read
ahead as much as possible, it makes lab time more worthwhile and it makes the
lectures seem so much more relevant and easy to understand. Study EM pictures,
get that black and white book and make sure you look over EMs the night before
the exam because they are fairly easy and can gain you solid points. Use the
UIowa website as much as possible because they basically eliminate the need for
lab time. In fact, look at UIowa slides during lab, you'll enjoy it more. Histology is
more fast-paced than anatomy and you'll find yourself dedicated more time to it
and this is key to doing well. You seriously need to study histology like crazy and
not slack off or get discouraged by how boring this class is.

Advice from Jennifer Aquino

The most challenging aspect of this class is the pace. It moves really fast. The first
test was my lowest one out of all the histo tests. I didn’t have a “groove”. But
then I found one and it totally worked for me. So here it is. Unlike anatomy, for
this class I actually had to read the chapter BEFORE class. So I would read the
chapter and take notes. I would try to figure it all out on my own before lecture. I
would also go through all the boxes in the book before lecture. I would sit in
lecture and use it as a review. I would quiz myself. So as the professor was
talking, I would be saying stuff like: “ok, I know that” “crap, I read that but didn’t
really pay close attention”, etc. So I used the lectures as a way of quizzing myself.
After lecture I would review the chapter that correlated to the lecture again
(Remember, I did my hardcore reading with notes before lecture and after lecture
I do it again with the notes this time). I would then read for tomorrow’s lecture. So
studying everyday is a smart choice (especially if you want some weekend time to
breathe!).

Anyway, closer test time I would sit down with my histo book and go through all
the BOXES and really know them and explain them to myself. Then, I would finish
by going through the notes and I would end with another quick review of the
boxes right before an exam. The boxes have pictures that he uses for the
practical exam. I remember for the first exam, there was a collagen picture right
out of the book. So boxes are great. Also, the electron micrographs come straight
from the assigned book. Just know them and you’ll be fine! Don’t cram like I did
for the first exam. If you know them and review them, you’ll get easy points on
exams. In my opinion, this is a very independent class. I didn’t find group studying
helpful only because the class moves so fast that you have to read on your own
everyday and everyone has their system. So I’d say, study on your own and throw
an occasional quiz question with your study buddy here and there. For the
miniboard, THERE WAS SO MUCH CELL BIO. It wasn’t a 100% histology miniboard.
So I would recommend doing pretest, and the first couple of chapters of the
Histology BRS for cell bio because Histology and Cell Bio BRS has stuff on
cholesterol, collagen, etc. For the miniboard I used pre-test and I used his book.
But if I could do back in time, I would have done more cell bio. Good thing, if you
remembered you’re biochemistry though! Thank goodness for Pinol Roma! I had
his slides in my head during that miniboard. Study everyday, keep up, be efficient
and use your time wisely. Hard work pays off!

TEXTBOOKS

Here are some of the histology books available. There’s another atlas
recommended by the department, so you should look into that and see if it works
for you. But the textbook is the number one source for passing histo and the
miniboard, it’s like gold!

Textbook Name Edition Description ISBN

Histology and Cell Biology: 2nd The MAIN SOURCE for this0323045278
An Introduction to Pathology class, and a good reference
for future classes in
Sophie!
BRS Cell Biology and 5 th
A good review before the0781785774
Histology miniboard, or to brush up
on cell biology. Also good
for questions before the
miniboard, or even class
exams.
Cell & Tissue Ultrastructure 2nd Required textbook with0716770334
useful pictures of electron
microscopy.
Color Atlas of Histology 4th The atlas we used last0781798280
year. Pretty good pictures,
definitely handy to use in
lab.
PreTest Anatomy, Histology 2nd This PreTest edition has0071437495
and Cell Biology anatomy and histology in
one book. I didn’t use it,
but PreTest is usually gold
for the miniboards, so
worth a look.

Good luck with everything and please don’t hesitate to ask for help if you need it.
This course goes by extremely quickly so if you find yourself struggling after the
first exam you need to get help immediately, either from a TA (they are all really
helpful), Dr Kirszenbaum, or a fellow classmate who’s doing well and willing to
help. Enjoy!