How much mathematical talent is requisite for pre-med and then med school?

Pre-Med & Medical School High School Student Topics
1

<p>Hi. Can someone be very bad at math and eventually become a doctor? It seems that actual doctoring would involve little or no math, but I know pre-med students are required to do a certain amount of math classes regardless of major. The MCAT probably requires an understanding of higher-level maths (yes?). Then med school itself probably asks you to at least be able to add, and probably multiply too, but I got a 580 on the relevant section on my SAT. (800s on the other sections, but that's probably not helpful for passing calculus or applying to med school). Do you think that with perseverance it could be done?</p>

<p>EDIT: I also barely passed pre-calculus this year. I'm not taking any math classes next (senior) year.</p>

2

<p>I would suspect very little, TBH.</p>

3

<p>Yeah, it’s not that huge of a deal. Other than Calc, which you may struggle with, math in pre-med and med education is mostly algebraic unless you choose otherwise.</p>

4

<p>Pre-med, I believe you’ll have to take a year of either calculus or statistics in order to meet requirements when you apply to med school. I’m not sure how much math is in MCAT; the sections are physical science, biological science, writing, and verbal reasoning…so that doesn’t sound like a lot of hard math.</p>

5

<p>The actual math knowledge isn’t important but you need to be able to think critically and logically. There will be many times during medical school and beyond where you are presented with lab data and you need to interpret it or make calculations.</p>

<p>The fact you scored so poor on SAT math (which doesn’t test calculus) suggests that this is more than a knowledge problem. This is likely a problem with the way you approach and think about scientific issues.</p>

6

<p>Thanks very much for the replies, all! It’s encouraging to hear that there isn’t much higher-level math involved, even though the last poster probably has a very strong point about the intelligence issue being more problematic than any specific mathematical one.</p>

7

<p>But the physical sciences portion of the MCAT requires calculus, I would think.</p>

8

<p>i think math grades are just used to see how you problem solve and such</p>

9

<p>You can take calc-based physics if you want but it isn’t required, so it won’t be tested on the MCAT. I wouldn’t think this is worth it for the average bio pre-med though.</p>