Correlation Between Intelligence And Sucess As A Doctor?

[ZanMD]

I'm just curious about this. Are the majority of sucessful doctors who make it through med school more intelligent than average?
I understand how grueling and demanding it is, but do people of average intelligence who sucessfully maintain thier grades and become sucessful practioners?

I ask this question because I'm trying to narrow the gap between the perception of doctors as super intelliegent people and the reality of people who simply have the drive and commitment to excel inspite of limitations. I consider myself to be fairly intelligent, and most concepts come to me fairly easily without having to consistently review things multiple times to grasp a concept. By no means am I trying to paint myself as a genius, but I'm fairly confident about my chances. That said, my question is will I find myself a number amidst a sea of geniuses, a bunch of very dedicated people who will strive for improvement and perfection, or a mixture of both?

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[DD214_DOC]

I believe most are near average or slightly above average intelligence, some are average, and a few are geniuses. There's no specific range of intelligence for physicians.

Genius is a term thrown around quite a bit today. You are not a genius. I am not a genius. Most of the people on SDN are not geniuses. Albert Einstein, Mozart, Beethoven, and people like them are geniuses.

A Genius is not specifically someone of "high intellectual capacity", but rather someone who creates original and provocative thoughts that violate the confines of current human thought and understanding. In laymen's terms, true original thought.

 

[Street Philosopher]

intelligence is only one factor in being a successful doctor.


coming from a rich family is the other one.

 

[jed2023]

Originally posted by JKDMed
I believe most are near average or slightly above average intelligence, some are average, and a few are geniuses. There's no specific range of intelligence for physicians.

This is so flagrantly false that I thought I'd make a comment. If we are using IQ as the definition of intelligence, then yes most doctors have superior intelligence. This is simply due to selection factors. Med schools select for bright folks. Duh!
If you don't believe me, check out the following article from the British Medical Journal. Doctors had the 2nd highest average IQ out of 444 occupational groups. And they tested general practitioners. If they had tested more highly selective fields like neurosurgery, derm, or ortho, the doctors might have beaten the mathematicians for the highest average IQ.

http://bmj.com/cgi/content/full/316/7134/S2-7134

BMJ 7134 Volume 316: Saturday 14 March 1998

Psychological tests
Extensive research on intelligence tests shows that they predict performance at work well, for nearly all types of work. They may, however, be less useful in selecting doctors, given that access to the profession has depended on very high grades in university admission examinations. These entry requirements are likely to mean that few doctors would get anything but high scores in intelligence tests, so such tests would not contribute useful information in selection. The American general aptitude test battery has information on average intelligence quotients (IQs) for 444 occupational groups, in which general practitioners (with an average IQ of 136) are beaten to the top only by mathematicians (mean IQ 143).2

 

[BiggMann79]

I think a lot of times students lose sight of reality because they are constantly surrounded by very intelligent people and they start to think that their group of peers is a representative sample of the whole world. It is NOT! Remember the average IQ by definition is 100. If there are a lot of med students at your school running around with IQ's of 100 then I would like to see where you go to school, I would especially like to see their average MCAT and USMLE scores 🙂

Too many med students have never had to work a real job in their entire lives and have been in school non-stop since the age of 5 (or younger) and don't have a fair grip on reality. Then people wonder why a lot of doctors can't relate to their patients.

 

[ZanMD]

I don't think we can assume high test scores and grades necessarily indicate a highly intelligent person. If someone were of average intelligence, but they studied hard, and applied themselves, they could be sucessful to a point. Perhaps things wouldn't come as easily to them as to a more intelligent person, but they could easily compensate if driven enough. Memorization and regurgitation can be mastered by most people- It's how hard you're willing to work to achieve the excellent memory retention and understanding of concepts that come more easily to more intelliegent people.

Personally I've never been a huge fan of IQ scores being the sole determinant factor in someone's abilities. I'm sure any psychiatrist or neurologist worth his salt could back me up on that. If you need proof- just look at mensa😀

 

[doc05]

Originally posted by ZanMD
I don't think we can assume high test scores and grades necessarily indicate a highly intelligent person. If someone were of average intelligence, but they studied hard, and applied themselves, they could be sucessful to a point. Perhaps things wouldn't come as easily to them as to a more intelligent person, but they could easily compensate if driven enough. Memorization and regurgitation can be mastered by most people- It's how hard you're willing to work to achieve the excellent memory retention and understanding of concepts that come more easily to more intelliegent people.

Personally I've never been a huge fan of IQ scores being the sole determinant factor in someone's abilities. I'm sure any psychiatrist or neurologist worth his salt could back me up on that. If you need proof- just look at mensa😀

of course a single measure like IQ is imperfect, but IQ is really all we have as far as objective measure of intelligence. that said, the average physician is above average, with a mean IQ around 120.

Likewise, most med students/physicians fall into a fairly narrow range w/respect to IQ. Of course there are a few well above and below the mean, translating into a few with "average" (IQ of 100) intelligence but who are in fact very hard workers.

Now because most physicians fall into a fairly narrow range as far as "intelligence" it is probably not a significant determinant as far as success within the field: once you've been admitted, you are already in a select group, and there is little differentiation as far as intelligence/IQ.

That said, those who are more successful may have superior intelligence; but more likely are just more motivated and put more effort into their studies. Likewise, as far as competitive specialties, there may or may not be a signicant difference between them and the average FP.

 

[mattorama]

If you don't believe me, check out the following article from the British Medical Journal. Doctors had the 2nd highest average IQ out of 444 occupational groups. And they tested general practitioners. If they had tested more highly selective fields like neurosurgery, derm, or ortho, the doctors might have beaten the mathematicians for the highest average IQ.

No way physicians would have beaten mathematicians. Anyone who had taken an upper lvl/grad lvl abstract math class (who has a glimpse of what matematics REALLY is...aka, not calc, diff eq...) will understand the degree of intellectual ability/creativity it takes to be able to "do" any real math... Math profs tend to be very humble. Why? Because they are constantly reminded how "dumb" they are when they tackle super difficult problems. An interesting fact I learned from a friend of mine in math grad school. He says that Mathematicians can't even BEGIN to talk to each other about their research unless they are in the same very small sub-field (can't really say this for other fields...). The difficulty and depth of the stuff is mindblowing. Ever wonder why most of the greatest geniuses ever were mathematicians?

I wish I could find it... somewhere I saw some stats that showed MDs as having the highest average IQ second to PhDs. BUT, there was a VERY small IQ range for the MDs, whereas the PhDs had a fairly wide distribution of IQ scores. Plotted against each other it was obvious that the top PhDs blow away the top MDs in IQ score (I would place mathematicians mainly within this top bracket). I had always suspected the fact by looking at grad students and profs. The brightest of the brightest hold a PhD, but as a whole MDs have a higher ave. intelligence.

I too doubt there is much difference between FPs and specialists. I could very well be wrong, but it seems like the main difference is degree of drive/obsessivness. These are NOT a function of IQ.

 

[mattorama]

I wish I could find it... somewhere I saw some stats that showed MDs as having the highest average IQ second to PhDs.

Sorry, change that...I meant "with PhDs second"....

 

[thackl]

Well, I have no stat's so I will just talk out my ass for a few minutes:

As someone who has worked for Motorola and 3M as an engineer, I will say that hard work, determination and creativity will take you much further in life than raw intelligence. In many positions in the work place, the more intelligent of my co-works could easily become complacent and bored, which lead to underachievement. I fell into this in my position at Mot. which is why I left. You have to be selective in where you put people. They must be capable of doing the job, but it must be challenging/interesting to them. Too easy=poor performance. Too hard= poor performance. There is a position for everyone.

Also, I have always believed math/engineering Phd's required more raw intelligence than MD's, however, they do not required the same level of dedication, passion and time. My dilemma for the past few yrs has been deciding between MD or PhD in engineering. I would "feel" smarter w/the PhD, but I don't think I would like the work. With a tested IQ in the upper 140's (no genius here) I would be an ave PhD and end up in crappy research at some company under a crappy boss with a BS in business. As a PhD, I would want to teach and give high level presentations, but this is for the best of the best (not me). I know I will enjoy being an MD.

 

[Primate]

Originally posted by thackl
Well, I have no stat's so I will just talk out my ass for a few minutes:

An honest person!!!

You should go for the MD/PhD. It seems only logical that if you get BOTH degrees, you must be twice as smart, right? Right???
😛

I also have no stats on this, but IMNSHO (NS = not so) IQ's are worth just less than the paper report they're printed on. Being able to recall a string of 16 numbers in reverse order does not predispose one to intellectual greatness. Now, if you're both very intelligent and actually "smart" (using a personal definition here - you could substitue "have common sense" to good effect), then you're on to somethin'. It just seems (to me) that this doesn't happen all that often.

I can't tell you how many people I know with quite high IQ's that just don't do very good research. They can do excellent work, but it's very often limited in scope. The great ones have the ability to get the concepts and then ask a broad question (and go answer it). It takes something more than high IQ to do this (as implied by JKDmed in an earlier post).

 

[Homunculus]

Originally posted by Street Philosopher
intelligence is only one factor in being a successful doctor.


coming from a rich family is the other one.

 

[grobble]

The true test of intelligence is applying knowledge towards a useful purpose or to solve a problem. By this alot of doctors are not that intelligent because medical school rewards pure and blunt memorization for the first two years over truly understanding. I come from engineering and am know in med school and most of my class chooses to memorize over understand and comprehend. I see that when profs expect us to know stuff 2 or 3 themes later people have blank looks because they memorized for the test and forgot it a week later. I may only do average on the test but I choose to undersatnd first and memorize at last resort. So they may seem more intelligent than me by scores but I expect to have an easier time 3rd and 4th and won't being trying to memorize everything again for every rotation.

 

[jed2023]

Originally posted by mattorama

I wish I could find it... somewhere I saw some stats that showed MDs as having the highest average IQ second to PhDs. BUT, there was a VERY small IQ range for the MDs, whereas the PhDs had a fairly wide distribution of IQ scores. Plotted against each other it was obvious that the top PhDs blow away the top MDs in IQ score (I would place mathematicians mainly within this top bracket). I had always suspected the fact by looking at grad students and profs. The brightest of the brightest hold a PhD, but as a whole MDs have a higher ave. intelligence.

I too doubt there is much difference between FPs and specialists. I could very well be wrong, but it seems like the main difference is degree of drive/obsessivness. These are NOT a function of IQ.

You bring up some really interesting points. I think I am familiar with the research you are thinking about and I am also at a loss as to the name of the study. If you are thinking about the same research, it is from the middle part of the last century, when getting into medical school wasn't even that competitive, but mostly a matter of having enough money. The average IQ reported for docs was 120 and for PhD's 130. The situation now, however, is very different with med school being far more competitive for admission than graduate school, including PhD applications.

So, stating that the average PhD has a higher IQ than the MD may, in fact, be bogus. In fact, a number of PhDs these days went that route because they couldn't get into med school. Maybe this is a small percentage of folks, but this happens more often than the other way around.

Also, realize that I am talking about average IQ without consideration for its statistical distribution. But even if we were to consider standard deviations, medicine still attracts some of the highest absolute IQ folks around (Doogie Howser types who zipped through school and skipped a lot of grade levels). Just a few weeks ago there was a story of a kid that started med school and was 12 years old. This kid probably has an IQ approaching 200, since the administration thinks he can successfully compete with 22 year olds that just graduated from college. How many PhDs do you think have IQs this high in the US? My point is that your theory that medicine doesn't have it's share of super IQ folks, or that top PhDs outscore top MDs, is totally bogus.

 

[Akamushi]

that kid's in the MD/PhD program at UC....he doesn't belong in either category or does he belong in both?

 

[thackl]

Hey Primate, I agree completely.

I'm skipping the PhD because of a desire to work closely with my patients. Reseach isn't very applealing to me lately.

 

[MeganRose]

Originally posted by mattorama
No way physicians would have beaten mathematicians. Anyone who had taken an upper lvl/grad lvl abstract math class (who has a glimpse of what matematics REALLY is...aka, not calc, diff eq...) will understand the degree of intellectual ability/creativity it takes to be able to "do" any real math... Math profs tend to be very humble. Why? Because they are constantly reminded how "dumb" they are when they tackle super difficult problems. An interesting fact I learned from a friend of mine in math grad school. He says that Mathematicians can't even BEGIN to talk to each other about their research unless they are in the same very small sub-field (can't really say this for other fields...). The difficulty and depth of the stuff is mindblowing. Ever wonder why most of the greatest geniuses ever were mathematicians?

I wish I could find it... somewhere I saw some stats that showed MDs as having the highest average IQ second to PhDs. BUT, there was a VERY small IQ range for the MDs, whereas the PhDs had a fairly wide distribution of IQ scores. Plotted against each other it was obvious that the top PhDs blow away the top MDs in IQ score (I would place mathematicians mainly within this top bracket). I had always suspected the fact by looking at grad students and profs. The brightest of the brightest hold a PhD, but as a whole MDs have a higher ave. intelligence.

I too doubt there is much difference between FPs and specialists. I could very well be wrong, but it seems like the main difference is degree of drive/obsessivness. These are NOT a function of IQ.

Yeah, I heard this somewhere as well. I think it said that the average IQ for physicians ~126 PhDs, 135

 

[Sheon]

To graduate from medical school requires a good deal of intelligence. Not because you need it to get through medical school, but because you need it to get into medical school.

I think we can assume that most physicians (people who have graduated from medical school) have higher than average intelligence, but certainly drive and commitment have a lot more to do with getting OUT of medical school than intelligence does.

As for the MD vs PhD thing, I never heard of anyone saying I couldn't get a PhD so I went to medical school, but scientific PhD programs have a good number of medical school rejects (I don't mean that in a bad way, but I can't think of a better word than reject).

 

[ckent]

It's no big surprise that math PhD's would test highest on IQ tests as most IQ tests are mathematically based. There are significant differences between average USMLE and MCAT scores between people who go into different specialties, with those entering more competetive specialties (derm, ortho, ns) having both higher average USMLE and MCAT scores. Since an IQ test is just an objective way of quantifying how intelligent or competent one is in thinking, I suppose that one could suggest that the USMLE and MCAT are another way to quantify how "intelligent" or competent one is in medicine. I don't think that correlates well with "success" as a doctor if your trying to say that the most successful doctor is the most competent doctor, because I think that competence in medicine has much more to do with dedication and willingness to learn and keep up with medicine as an evolving field then any "intelligence" measurement. Once you learn the basics, medicine, unlike PhD work, is all about keeping up with and digesting the large volume of new information that is pumped out every year through research, and surgeons stay competent through learning manual skills. Neither way requires a lot of intelligence.