Is it preventing some prospective doctors from entering medical school?
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The requirements are pretty basic as they are. Given that most medical schools accept applicants from a general applications pool,requirements in the way of completed credit hours in the sciences appear to be rational. The only alternative I could see might to be to require a certain set of minimum scores on the MCAT subtests and no specific requirements as to what coursework would be necessary to apply.
I would be perfectly happy with coursework waiver (I got one, albeit minimal, in Physics lecture, but had a good case, having scored especially highly in that MCAT subtest, that the course was unnecessary for me.)
In theory, you could teach someone to be a doctor by immersing them in the hospital for 4 straight years. No basic science classes, no systems classes, all without a bachelors degree. They’ll pick up the job as they go, with some conferences here and there to talk about common disease processes and physiology. These students would be highly functioning technicians.
We could teach people to be doctors like this, but should we?
In reality, the best physicians are practical-functioning biologists, chemists, and physicists. Understanding the process of disease and the process of treatment is important. Having a base of “basic sciences” prior to entering medical school is essential as a source of knowledge (and a “weedout” process) to better predict those students who can handle the classwork of the first 2 years.
I’m not a doctor; I’m an engineer. I took all the science and calculus referenced in the article and comments — and then some — and I did fine. I also took a bunch of humanities courses and had a social life. And, frankly, I don’t want a doctor who can’t jump those hurdles.
“I would have been a doctor except I didn’t want to sacrifice two semesters of philosophy for organic chemistry.” BS. Lame party talk of someone who lacked the focus, confidence, and/or capability.
If you can’t handle the pre med curriculum you have no reason going into medicine. Organic chemistry was a minimal time commitment to get top scores in the class. Organic chemistry is just memorization.
If you can’t handle organic chemistry how are you going to handle trying to memorize the details of pharmacology, etc. The time commitment for these topics compared to organic chemistry is staggering. And no, these don’t feel like you are practicing medicine when you learn them but they are vital to the practice of medicine after you learn them.
Also, Picking up the fine points of clinical medicine is much harder than the basic sciences
Well said, anonymous engineer. Of all the things to object to in the path to becoming a physician, college pre-med courses? Seriously? Look, college classes are not THAT difficult. Certainly anybody who wanted to be a physician ought to be able to put the effort into doing well in those courses. Granted, my mostly-forgotten organic chemistry doesn’t have a huge role (if any) in my medical practice currently, but I think every physician ought to be able to go into their medical school pharmacology courses and not be totally lost.
The original blog is just plain silly. The pre-med stuff is easy compared to medical school. I did it, made all A’s, and had time to work my way through, get a well-rounded education, and participate in campus life–and med school was still an information firehose.
And I have used the basic science over the last 20 years to understand and keep up with advances. I would just be trying to memorize protocols without that foundation.
I would shift the other way–add requirements for more humanities without diminishing the science requirements. Medicine is supposed to be a profession of well-educated scientific humanitarians.
And what about all these FMG’s who don’t even have a college education. Sometimes it shows.
I am a doctor, and an engineer. Premed as classically done was too constricting. So I studied something I found truly interesting, added to that some music classes, 2 philosophy classes, an extra writing class my senior year, and graduated with 162 credit hours in 4 years. The premed curriculum ‘heavy’ on the science stuff required only the university minimum 120 hours.
If kids take a light premed curriculum they are bound by the cut-throat GPA requirement. Add some heft and depth to your studies and med schools cut substantial slack to the GPA. They have to when an A in an upper level engineering class represents <20% of the class, not >70% as it did in the premed sciences.
The premed curriculum can be anything you make it if one is not to timid to make your own path.
“”And what about all these FMG’s who don’t even have a college education. Sometimes it shows.”"
Are you talking about physicians with Commonwealth-type MBBS or MBBCh degrees? Technically those are first university degrees (albeit longer courses than four years, more likely 5-6), but they are taken after GSCE AS/A level examinations. That is generally a more advanced achievement than American high school diplomas are, more similar to an International Baccalaureate or one to two years of U.S. university work. My point is that those physician graduates have similar numbers of years of education as do American graduates.
As an American graduate from a well-regarded university, I have found many of those “FMGs” to have been enviably well-educated.
Last time I looked, medical school admission rates were pretty much constant across undergraduate majors. Assuming overall good performance and good grades on the few required courses, good MCAT’s and all that, your chance of getting in was about the same no matter what your major. Isn’t that still true?
anon 7:53:
yes
I thank the good Lord, each and every day that I don’t have to teach those suck-up pre-meds anymore.
As far as pharmacology, how many MDs actually know anything about kinetics?
–anon 7:53,
yes, but this discussion is about the prerequisite science classes that everyone has to take, regardless of major. these would be gen chem, organic chem, physics, gen biology, and some english and math classess, too.
It has nothing to do with whether someone has a Chemistry major or a Radio Broadcasting major.
I am sure with that attitude Pepsi Loo the “suck up pre-meds” are probably equaly glad to be rid of you.
But who would you teach those intro classes to, then? The “suck up pre meds” at least give someone a paycheck for the trouble.
As for knowledge of pharmacokinetics, its usefulness on a day-to-day basis is for many practitioners about as useful as optics or electronics. Are you suggesting they would be better off with no exposure at all?
And as for “sucking up”, but for that no one might pay you any attention at all.
i dont think the premed curriculum should be so narrow in focus…i am for a good liberal arts education…makes for better doctors…i took a lot of history, political science, communications, and business classes in college and it helps me to better understand my patients, better connect with my patients as well; i actually dont even remember most of the organic chemistry i learned in college and rarely had to refer to it in medical school
http://www.miamimd.net
7:53 again.
general chemistry
organic chemistry
general biology
general physics
general calculus
five courses. that’s it. not much.
English doesn’t count, as it’s usually required to graduate. Same with any foreign language requirement. Personally, I don’t think that’s very much.
Is it really asking too much that the doctor know the body of knowledge of general and organic chemistry, general physics, and general biology? To know the difference between a nucleus and a cytoplasm?
At least enough chemistry that the pharmacology makes basic sense, and is something more than memorization?
Of those five…..what would you want to eliminate?
Not that I’m trying to defend organic chemistry in particular. I wonder if a big part of that course is a measurement of the ability to absorb and synthesize knowledge. It could just as easily be Latin or Mandarin Chinese. Or make it through Marine boot camp. Anyone who makes it through basic training has the ability to survive the physical and mental rigors of medical education, assuming the ability to absorb the scientific information.
Undergraduate major made no difference in the early-mid 1970’s (the first time I felt a need to check), it hadn’t changed in the 1980’s, and apparently hasn’t changed today. In fact, I wonder if a major in French literature makes you stand out from the same old boring biology premed major.
It’s not 5 courses. It’s at least 10.
General biology = cell biology, which has 2-3 prerequesits.
General chemistry = parts 1 and 2
Organic chemistry = parts 1 and 2
General calculus = parts 1 and 2
General physics = parts 1 and 2
Now I still don’t think the pre-recs should be lessened, but it’s more classes than you think it is.
Reviewed a chart last week of someone screwed because his doctor didn’t visualize the pharmacokinetics.
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