<p>Okay, so this is something I've been thinking about for awhile:</p>
<p>How come statistics isn't required for pre-med? It's THE most medically relevant math class. 33 medical schools require "College Mathematics" and 16 schools required calculus, according to the MSAR book, but why not just say "Statistics" and make it a required course...all the medical journals use heavy amounts of statistics. </p>
<p>And throw out physics and put in anatomy instead. I mean, come on...I don't know of any clinical doctors that still remember physics, and whole units of physics are irrelevant to medical practice or at least only needed by a very small % of doctors.
Anatomy, on the other hand, is something that EVERYONE needs to remember. The doctors of tomorrow would be much better grounded if they came into medical school knowing the basics of anatomy (through dissecting pigs and such while studying human anatomy) and then went through gross anatomy in medical school (using a human cadaver). Make physics required for MD/PhD programs, but not for med school.</p>
<p>Anyway, would anyone care to refute my claims? I would love to be told the reasons why the current system is the best. Or does anyone have any other changes they would like to suggest?</p>
<p>Physics is needed, you don't use it much but it helps you think in a way that helps you learn medicine quicker and better. Anatomy is pretty useless in college, because you will learn it many times more in depth in med school. That and lots of schools general bio goes over anatomy to the level needed for just entering med school. Why bother taking it so many times if you will learn it better later</p>
<p>Actually, I think so far through my first year, physics has been the most surprisingly relevant pre-med requirement. Maybe b/c I, like billybob here, thought it wouldn't be relevant, or that the chemistry has become pretty much second nature, but there have been several physics concepts that actually have very direct relations to basic physiology.</p>
<p>the big topics are electricity and circuits. The electrical current stuff is important for understanding nerve structure and function (as well as the theoretical background of EKG's and such). The circuit stuff is helpful in the understanding movement of blood through the circulatory system (surprise!). I used to teach a lot of physics for Kaplan's MCAT classes, so I had a better understanding than most (or was at least the most recent exposure), and other topics like hydrostatic forces, flow mechanics and stuff was somewhat helpful.</p>
<p>Physics is also good b/c most of the problems are word problems, and require you to sift through the information, pull out the relavant points and apply them to figure out what you don't know, and how you want to get there. This mirrors a lot of the process of taking a History, figuring out what's relevant, determining what physical exam things would be most helpful, creating a differential diagnosis, and choosing the appropriate labs/imaging studies to lead you to the correct diagnosis.</p>
<p>Really, Organic is probably the least useful, especially if you took two semesters of biochem. Other than knowing functional groups and some of the pricinple organic reactions, I dont' ever feel like I'm using organic chem principles very often, but again, that could be due to the biochem courses I took.</p>
<p>thanks bigredmed, that makes me feel better about the pre-med courses I'll be taking in the future.</p>