Ive gotten a few PMs about the transition from Engineering to Medical school. Hopefully other engineers out there will post their opinions as well. From what I can tell, engineers make up a very small fraction of medical school classes and I dont really believe that we are well understood by most faculty and administrators. Thus, they dont really know what to make of us.
In my opinion, there is a fundamental difference between engineering and science. Engineering focuses much more on the application than the theory and science is the other way around. Medical school follows the science mode of thinking. I've got friends here and there and they have pretty much all told me the same thing.
Let me illustrate with an example... There were guys in my class who had something like 3.7 GPA's (biologists, exercise physiology, etc.) and 30+'s on the MCAT. No small task. Brilliant guys who I knew will make fine physicians someday. These guys could memorize anything and get an A on the test because it was based almost solely on memorization, which seems to be a common thread in most medical schools. I had a horrible time with memorization because it wasn't really emphasized that much in engineering school. What amazed me the most is that whenever I asked these guys a "what would happen if we did this?" type question, their minds would stall, but they were the A students none the less. This drove me nuts. However, I did very well in OMM because I understood the concepts of force vectors and statics. In my opinion, as long as you get the force vectors right, OMM can be done in almost any position anywhere. Anyway, back to the topic at hand.
I had to retrain my mind to learn in a completely different fashion. From logical, linear analysis focused on solving a problem to pure information acquisition. A core dump into my brain would be a better way to put it and would be a neat trick if I could pull it off as well as some of the other guys could. We had PBL sessions as well. The analytical mode of thinking really helped out there. On the other hand, our analytical, problem solving background seems to be quite helpful in clinical matters.
Let me give you another example
First year physiology was kind of a rough class. I understood the concepts of electrical circuits (nerve conduction), capacitors (cell membrane potential), pumps (cardiac cycle) and fluid mechanics (hemodynamics) from an industrial (engineering) point of view, but the way that these concepts were taught was so vastly different than the way I already understood them, it caused a lot of confusion. Eventually, I had to divorce myself from my original mode of thinking in order to survive. I couldnt figure out how the quantitative units could just disappear.
Sorry, got kind of rambling there
The bottom line is that going from engineering school to medical school represents a fundamental shift in schools of thought. Remember, you are being taught by Ph.D. scientists, not engineers. You need to learn things the way that He who writes the test wants you to learn them and will test you on them. What worked in college may or may not work in medical school. Keep an open mind and be willing to try different things. Once you figure out what works, take the ball and run with it. From time to time you may be able to use your engineering skills for example, the brachial plexus didnt make much sense to me until I drew it out like an electrical diagram.
Hope this answered the questions. If not, let me know.