Pre-Med Questions - Biology?

Pre-Med & Medical School Pre-Med Topics
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<p>I'm a junior in high school thinking about pursuing a career in Medicine and possibly becoming a doctor. I know posts like this can get annoying but I'm having a hard time finding specific information. </p>

<p>Would a biology major be beneficial for a career in medicine? How does it help you in terms of medical practice?</p>

<p>I saw that most med school applicants major in "physical sciences". I'm assuming this means Biology, Chemistry, or Physics? How would a physics major help you treat people?</p>

<p>Are there any careers available for a person with a BS in Biology if I do not get accepted to Medical School?</p>

<p>Thanks guys!</p>

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<p>Your undergrad major doesn’t play any significant role even in medical college admissions. It is unlikely to play much of any role in the day to day practice of medicine. You should be more focused in finishing your finals strong and getting your college admission essays going. If you get into a good college with good pre-health advising, they will give your more pertinent guidance, when you get there. You have until the end of your sophomore year in college to decide on a major anyways…</p>

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<p>“Would a biology major be beneficial for a career in medicine? How does it help you in terms of medical practice?”
-You have to wait until your residency to ask yourself “How does it help you in terms of medical practice?”. UG will have very little to do with your future of MD.</p>

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<p>I’ve just seen many posters claim that Biology is the best major for Pre-Med because it gives you a deeper in depth knowledge of how they body and cells work, but does this really translate over to being an actual doctor and diagnosing patients?</p>

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<p>^Have absolutely NOTHING even in comparison to Medical School academics. Nothing at all, much lower level than needed. But even Med. School academic material is by far NOT enough to get you any advantage. When you are in residency, then you will more or less learn what you need.<br>
Enjoy your life while in HS. These precious years will never ever repeat. do not worry about things that have no effect on your future at this stage of your life. I am very serious about it, no jokes. I am a parent of 3rd year Medical Student, I am expressing her opinion.
Absolutely ANY major in UG is fine if you are planning to go to Med. School. Attending Conservatory of Music just as good as BME. Nobody will ever care including you as a future doc. However, you will care a lot about memories from HS and UG years. Have the great ones!!!</p>

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<p>I think the major benefit (and reason many pre-meds choose Biology) is that most of the “pre-med” requirements are the same requirements as the major. My son is a Bio major and the only classes that were not requirements for his major was the 2nd semester of Orgo (but he could use it as an elective), the 2nd semester Orgo lab and the two Physics labs. This allows him a great deal of flexibility in choosing other courses that interest him. Other majors, that don’t mirror a lot of pre-med requirements, don’t allow as much flexibility.</p>

<p>That being said, my son choose it because he LOVES Biology, and not for any perception that it would boost his chances in medical school.</p>

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<p>You won’t learn much about practicing medicine in undergrad–but that’s how it’s supposed to be.</p>

<p>The purpose of choosing an academic (as opposed to vocational) major (eg the science fields you already listed) is to begin training you how to think about, research, and synthesize information into something useful–in other words, developing more sophisticated skills you will need to use in order to learn and think in the future. If your goal is med school, the purpose of undergrad is not vocational training (contrast this to say, teachers–individuals who want to become teachers learn specific skills to teach kids/students/whomever during undergrad, and can function as teachers right after graduating. Not so with medicine.). </p>

<p>As kdog pointed out, there’s some benefit to choosing a major such as biology because many of the premed prereqs will also be required for your major, theoretically freeing up your schedule to pursue other academic interests (other majors or minors, more in-depth study in your major, etc etc). But really, the most important thing is to choose a major that’s intellectually exciting for you–plus, you’ll probably be more successful in that field anyway.</p>

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<p>Biochem is the best. </p>

<p>Reasons: All classes for Pre-med satisfy biochemistry major requirements in some way. You need a few extra but it shouldn’t be a big deal. The major is also usually quite flexible and gives you opportunities to take other classes.</p>

<p>All parents who ask me “my son/daughter wants to do premed and go to med school what should he/she major in?” receive this answer.</p>

<p>Disclaimer: These opinions are solely my own.</p>

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<p>

Perhaps at your school but at my son’s school Physics labs are not a requirement for the MB&B (Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry) major, which is identical to the Biology major. ;)</p>

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<p>@ Kdog,</p>

<p>I forgot that some schools have labs that you register for separately. I understand that why you point that out, but does it really matter? He probably still needs Physics for both his major and for med school, and needs the labs for medical school. </p>

<p>Molecular Biophysics and biochemistry sounds like a unique major. Isn’t there a regular biochemistry major that’s just straight up “biochemistry?”</p>

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<p>I am violating my self-imposed rule (to avoid unnecessary debates with fellow posters) of no more than one post in each thread, with the hope that this would be useful to the OP.</p>

<p>Firstly, my second son is a junior in high school also. He has to take 3 AP tests and 2 SAT II tests in the next month or so. As everybody knows, junior year in HS is the busiest. As I mentioned in my previous post, I would be ecstatic if he simply concentrates on those tests and his college essays for now. Why complicate it even further with thoughts of a college major, if you can avoid?</p>

<p>Having said that, I will offer the OP the advice my first son got when he was deciding on a major:</p>

<p>[ul]
[<em>] Pick a field that you enjoy and have a real interest in.
[</em>] Pick a field in which you can academically excel. It usually is the same as the first.
[li] Pick a field that gives you a decent alternative career, if the medical college plan falls apart.[/li][/ul]</p>

<p>My son followed through and picked Computer Science as his major, because it fits all the three aspects of the above mentioned advice. I was a bit concerned, because average GPAs at his school of engineering tend to be measurably lower than that of other schools at his university. He felt that there was no such thing as an “easy major” and wanted to go with CS, because he enjoys it.</p>

<p>By the end of his sophomore year, with all the pre-med courses he was taking, he realized that he wasn’t that far from a Biology major and declared that as his second major. I wasn’t happy about that either, because I thought without that he could keep his senior year schedule light to attend the interviews. With the senior honors thesis, remaining Biology requirements and foreign language requirements of his Linguistics minor, his senior year is going to be hectic. I guess that’s the way he likes it …</p>

<p>One parting thought - while any overlap between your major and medical school pre-requisites is a good thing, in my view, that should come down pretty low in the order of things to consider while picking a major. A major takes only 30-35 credit hours of a total of 120. There is plenty of room left to fit the pre-requisites in, even if your major has no overlap.</p>

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<p>@kal123, that sounds like good advice but what if #1 and #3 don’t relate? My son loves Biology but I wouldn’t say it would provide a good alternative if MS doesn’t work out and is obviously not the best choice for GPA enhancement. That being said, medical school is his Plan A,B and C. His plan is to reapply after improving any weakness that may exist after his first try. ;)</p>

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<p>“I am violating my self-imposed rule (to avoid unnecessary debates with fellow posters) of no more than one post in each thread, with the hope that this would be useful to the OP.”</p>

<p>You are not having any fun then. The only reason to be on CC is to debate fellow posters while imparting what little wisdom we have. :p</p>

<p>I am not certain I agree with 30-35/120 for a major though. It does depend on the major and their prerequisites. Most schools have 60+ for CS and engineering majors when you add up all the math/other requirements which you would not be doing if you did not pick that major. If one went to Johns Hopkins and picked Biology major, they pretty much can’t think of any course outside of the prescribed requireements for that major plus graduation requirements.</p>

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<p>I agree with texaspg. My son’s Bio major equates to 20 out of 36 graduation credits at his university. He also has 14.5 general distribution requirements so there is not a lot of leeway for other classes if he had to add “pre-med” on top of that since most of those requirements fall under the science category.</p>

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<p>

I wish I knew… However, the fact that your son has clarity of thought with regards to his desire to go to medical schools, is a good sign. Kids like that apply themselves to the task at hand with a lot more focus. And that always helps them reach their goals.

:):)</p>

<p>

Yeah, I counted only the major specific courses. I have been vague about the school my son is attending, so far. I will reveal that now :slight_smile: He is in Johns Hopkins’ Whiting School of Engineering. To get his CS degree, he needs 42 hours of CS classes, 22 credits of math and some other spread requirements. He is also getting a Biology (BA) from Krieger School of A&S. For the Biology BA, he needs 32 credits of Biology courses, in addition to chemistry, physics and humanities requirements. His Linguistics minor covers the humanities requirement. For his Linguistics minor he needs 20+ credits in Linguistics and 4 foreign language courses. Luckily, JHU is pretty generous with AP credits:) My son got 30 AP credits. Those not only helped him do two majors, but also placed him out of lower level pre-med courses.</p>

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<p>Kal - Your son is able to get a major in Bio and CS at JHU? I am a bit shocked. I looked at the required curriculum for Chemistry vs Biology one time and found Biology curriculum pretty much covered most of the 4 years.</p>

<p>So the committee letter works out ok for a CS major?</p>

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<p>It definitely hasn’t been easy. However, he had a few things that helped him out.</p>

<p>With Biology, the mitigating factors for him are -

[ul]
[<em>] He got AP credit for Gen Chem 1 & 2, and Intro. Bio 1 & 2, and Physics 1.
[</em>] He is doing BA not BS.
[li] There is some overlap with his CS Major and Linguistics minor for spread requirements like Humanities and math.[/li][/ul]</p>

<p>With his CS major, the mitigating factors are -

  • [<em>] He got AP credits for Calculus 1 and Intro. Programming.
    [</em>] He loves programming. The time commitment for his programming assignments a lot less compared to others.

He had to deal with scheduling issues on a regular basis. Also, because of his CS major he had to take different kind of Physics and Calculus (more difficult) courses than the ones Biology majors take.</p>

<p>His summers and winters were hectic to say the least. During his first summer, he did 14 hours, including the complete Orgo sequence. During his second summer, he did NSF REU program and another 4 hour course and an MCAT prep course. He dropped out of the MCAT prep, as he didn’t find it useful because of bad instructors. In the upcoming summer, he registered for a math course and Cell Biology lab. In his first winter he did EMT-B. He did a lot of shadowing during his second winter. He spent all of last winter preparing for and taking MCAT.</p>

<p>He is going through the committee process now. But, he was taking their guidance all along. His pre-health office was very supportive of his CS major. In fact, the one lady my son talks to, keeps telling him that his CS will help him stand out. Knock on wood … :slight_smile: Also, he took CS electives in computer aided surgery and medical robotics to keep it relevant for his pre-med.</p>

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<p>He will be able to make some money on the side writing code in med school!</p>

<p>Do you have another son in med school?</p>

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<p>That would be nice:) I have two sons. The other one is a junior in high school. Three of the four son’s of my brothers went to medical schools (JHU, UCLA & LSU).</p>

<p>My son and his friends have a tech startup. Their system is getting a lot of interest from places like JHU Hospital, City of Baltimore and Cleveland Clinic. They are invited to TEDMED 2013. They are also getting interest from venture capitalists. Its very promising, but the problem is two of the key guys are going to medical schools. I am not sure what’s going to happen to that startup.</p>

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<p>“He will be able to make some money on the side writing code in med school!”</p>

<p>-Expectations of having time for it while in Med. School might be false. True, it depends on a person. As far as I know about D. and her Med. School classmates, they do NOT have time for something like this. Otherwise, they would all work, financially that would be very desirable. I do not know a single Med. Student who works while most pre-meds DO work while in UG.</p>