Engineers...

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I was a bioengineering major in college - courses were tough and killed my GPA, but at least the physics portion of the MCAT was a breeze! 🙂

I definitely felt like I was behind, though, when I started med school (in terms of biology). Had to hit the books hard to catch up.

It's been a great conversation starter though.
 
Friday said:
Any engineers or former engineering majors (EE, MechE, BME et al) in med school? How goes it?

ERTW
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You know, this might sound a little depressing...but I have heard several times now that engineering students trying to enter a graduate program use medical school as a "back up plan" in case they don't get into the likes of Carnegie Mellon and Stanford..
 
Friday said:
Any engineers or former engineering majors (EE, MechE, BME et al) in med school? How goes it?

ERTW
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Former bioengineer and chemical engineering degree holder here. I got average grades last period, but I need better than average grades to do what I want to.

My problem was that I kept trying to find patterns in things. Completely wasted effort. Don't question the info, don't question the logic, just cram it all in, regurgitate, and trust that the program will make you a good doc. It's not your understanding, it's the amount of trivia you know.
 
RxnMan said:
Former bioengineer and chemical engineering degree holder here. I got average grades last period, but I need better than average grades to do what I want to.

My problem was that I kept trying to find patterns in things. Completely wasted effort. Don't question the info, don't question the logic, just cram it all in, regurgitate, and trust that the program will make you a good doc. It's not your understanding, it's the amount of trivia you know.
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I was BME and ya, i definitely look for patterns. I definitely have a problem cramming things when there is no pattern or any sense to it.

I wanted to see how other Eng. types are finding med school to see if there were similarities in my experience. My assessment so far is:

Med School isn't hard: At least I understand everything even if I can't cram it. There were several engineering courses where I couldn't understand what was going on for a whole month! The one class I'm finding really good is physio. I've heard engineers do well in physio for some reason.

Cramming is hard: I don't know how others do it. I can only cram about a tenth of what others do. it therefore follows that I'm not too excited about biochem and anatomy. I also heard that this is the aspect of med school that engineers have a problem with.
 
Chemical engineering thermodynamics is hard. Designing reactors or distillation columns is hard. The subject matter presented in med schools not hard to undertand. Then again, med school does not test your understanding. It tests your ability to regurgitate trivia. This takes repetition to overcome. To do this, trick yourself by:

1) Read lectures before class, during class, and the night after class
2) Rewriting notes
3) Listening to lectures online
4) Draw and redraw structures (anatomy especially)

That's all there is to it.

In my perspective, there's no difference between physio and biochem - it's all a continuous spectrum. Action potential leads to Na/K channels leads to electrochem gradients and DNA expression of protiens and etc.

If you need to look for patterns or for the flow of "information" in anatomy, then try flow charts organized by muscles.

C5-> ventral rami -> superior trunk -> posterior division -> posterior chord -> radial nerve ->...->target muscle
 
ChE in undergrad...med school is kicking my butt right now. all the things typical engineers do to study, HA. haven't worked out for me yet. i've had to change my study strategy after every round of tests and haven't found anything to work yet. however, this time i'm writing my own notes out. it's just really frustrating because we've been taught to know concepts, follow trends, etc. med school really is memorize and spit out. it's such an inefficient way to learn, but hey, i guess that's the way future doctors are supposed to be. sometimes i wish that i had done a 1-year masters or postbac courses just to get me in the mindset of how they want us to learn in school.

also though, they tell me once you get to 3rd and 4th years, you'll do well because we're all "problem solvers". at least that's what they say...
 
femily said:
also though, they tell me once you get to 3rd and 4th years, you'll do well because we're all "problem solvers". at least that's what they say...
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...
 
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Former BME,

I overthought a question in my physio test that everyone in our class got right (because it was a derivative from a practice test). "resistance is added to a parallel compartment" is suppose to mean adding a parallel branch whereas in circuits this specifically means something else. The correct wording is suppose to be "added in parallel" (I took EE circuits and signals). Man, I was so angry. Engineering so far is a disservice to me. :meanie:
 
I am M1 with a Mech. E degree. I have had to completely switch the "thinking" part of my brain off and my "memorize" part on. If you have trouble with memorization, med school is not for you. Engineering has helped me some times, I don't memorize the actions of muscles because it seems fairly intuitive if you the origin and insertions. Also we had a few hardy-weinberg eq. problems on one test, I didn't have to memorize it since it was a simple formula to derive.

Overall, it is a completely different mindset. I didn't do well on the first anatomy test. I aced the next test when I realized I didn't have to understand it, just memorize it.
 
BME here. I agree with posters above - forget "understanding" !! Sheer memorization does the trick. Integration and application of knowledge? Useless! I've only done well when I've crammed the minutiae with a callous disregard for trying to understand it.
 
EE here, med school feels like a cake walk as far as concepts are concerned, but the memorization never seems to end. Seems like thats the general consensus around here for the most part.

oh well, need to deal with it.

gd luck fellas
 
Former BIOE. It took me about a semester to figure out how to study. The material is just so different-- I'm hardly ever stumped (in terms of a concept), but it just takes many hours and many repetitions through the material before I feel like I've mastered it. The days of the untimed, open-note, killer thermo tests are definitely over!

But once you figure out a routine, a method to systematically get through the material and have it stick, it gets so much better.
 
OddNath said:
The days of the untimed, open-note, killer thermo tests are definitely over!
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Undergrad Eng 3 hr exams: Open book, 10 questions, you only manage to finish 7, get 55% and thats an A- .

Med School 3 hr exams: Closed book, 75 questions, do all 75, get 75% and thats a C- .

Oh well, we knew what we were getting into.
 
Dual major BME and biochem.
I think this about sums it up....

Engineering: Given an equation sheet with constants => solve problems

Med school: "What is the name of the equation that..."


Engineering: Design an amplifier circuit for an ECG lead with a noise level of # and mains isolation.

Med School: What percent of babies are born with congenital malformaties: 50%, 5%, 0.5%, or 0.05%. (I kid you not this was on our test)
 
MSE undergrad here. My feelings are much in line with everyone else's. The first few weeks were a bit of a struggle as I came to terms with not being able to know a few key equations and principles and reason things out from there. Nonetheless, a physical/mechanical/trends/mathematical view of material like that we used in engineering does come in handy at times...cardio physiology for example. Pharmacology or histology on the other hand...
 
So basically this is a thread destined to be a circle jerk where former undergraduate engineering majors blow each other and talk about how smart they are, how stupid everyone else in medical school is (or simple-minded, relying on paltry memorization), and how whimsically funny it is that their genius is being wasted on such a juvenile task.
 
Northerner said:
So basically this is a thread destined to be a circle jerk where former undergraduate engineering majors blow each other and talk about how smart they are, how stupid everyone else in medical school is (or simple-minded, relying on paltry memorization), and how whimsically funny it is that their genius is being wasted on such a juvenile task.
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We know you're jealous of our intellects. We understand. It happens all the time. It's okay to feel inferior. 🙂

On a serious note, I'm an EE and MS1. Like a lot of people have said, I find medical school conceptually pretty trivial, but the volume of information is like nothing I have experienced before. The difficulty for me has been keeping up with the information flow. It is definitely excercising a different part of my brain. I'm doing well but I don't think my engineering training is helping me very much. Perhaps when we get to physiology.
 
Northerner said:
So basically this is a thread destined to be a circle jerk where former undergraduate engineering majors blow each other and talk about how smart they are, how stupid everyone else in medical school is (or simple-minded, relying on paltry memorization), and how whimsically funny it is that their genius is being wasted on such a juvenile task.
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Not sure how you managed to be offended so much by the comments made in this thread so far. Most of us have just said that the concepts in medicine are easier, not that the entire field is trivial or without intellectual challenge. If anything, it seems that most engineers in med school take a block or two to learn how to study in a new style. Not necessarily an easier style, just one that is different and less dependent on widely different application of the same few ideas.
 
Northerner said:
So basically this is a thread destined to be a circle jerk where former undergraduate engineering majors blow each other and talk about how smart they are, how stupid everyone else in medical school is (or simple-minded, relying on paltry memorization), and how whimsically funny it is that their genius is being wasted on such a juvenile task.
Click to expand...

Generally speaking, engineering is one of the last bastions of high academic standards left in higher education. You can't bull**** your way through an engineering curriculum like you can in most other things.

Sorry.
 
robh said:
We know you're jealous of our intellects. We understand. It happens all the time. It's okay to feel inferior. 🙂

On a serious note, I'm an EE and MS1. Like a lot of people have said, I find medical school conceptually pretty trivial, but the volume of information is like nothing I have experienced before. The difficulty for me has been keeping up with the information flow. It is definitely excercising a different part of my brain. I'm doing well but I don't think my engineering training is helping me very much. Perhaps when we get to physiology.
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Not to mention that most of the stuff in first and second year is simply not as interesting as the engineering courses you take once you get past the basics. I took several structural steel design and concrete design classes that were many orders of magnitude more interesting than, say, embryology.
 
Panda, you just love starting fights don't you? 😉 Sure what you say is the truth, but still :laugh:. I like your blog.
 
Northerner said:
So basically this is a thread destined to be a circle jerk where former undergraduate engineering majors blow each other and talk about how smart they are, how stupid everyone else in medical school is (or simple-minded, relying on paltry memorization), and how whimsically funny it is that their genius is being wasted on such a juvenile task.
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Don't hate man. Because of our undergraduate training, we were trained to make more use of our procedural memory systems. Most other science majors were trained to make more use of the declarative memory systems. Certainly as physicians we will all need to develop both. Right now some of us are having a rough time developing the declarative systems and, oh ya, in about 2 years time many others will be developing their procedural systems. (forgive me for using the declarative-procedural models of memory so liberally)

We are not stating how 'smart' we are. In fact we, or at least I, am stating how dumb I now find myself to be. I can't cram for $hit. When we say the concepts are easy, we're stating how it is to us and do not mean for them to reflect on anybody else. I won't be offended if anyone says cramming is easy yet I know I suck so bad at it. We know everybody and every major has its own set of skills that are brought to the tbale in med school.

-ERTW 😉
 
I think the hardest adjustment for me is having to just memorize stuff and not think about patterns or to 'apply' what we've learned in some bizarre way. I actually like this type of rote memorization because it's easier to me than calculating algorithms or dealing with complex math equations (but I do miss programming). However, med school never lets me rest and enjoy what I'm learning. I'm also rushing! rushing! rushing! And I guess that's the part I have the hardest time adjusting to. Instead of spending ten hours in lab (which is FUN), I'm spending ten hours studying, which is very tiring and NOT FUN. Makes me glad I wasn't a bio major in college....I used to envy kids who didn't have their lives dictated by their labs and could just pick up their notes/books and study them everyday. Now I realize how exhausting constant reading and memorizing is.
 
Northerner said:
So basically this is a thread destined to be a circle jerk where former undergraduate engineering majors blow each other and talk about how smart they are, how stupid everyone else in medical school is (or simple-minded, relying on paltry memorization), and how whimsically funny it is that their genius is being wasted on such a juvenile task.
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Yeah, so what? Try a test where you have to calculate the change of energy and mass of an ice cube falling through a non-Newtonian fluid using a broken abacus and an Atari. That was just question 1 of a 5 question test done in 50 minutes for Intro to Engineering. Maybe an exaggeration...but really, damn, I remember those Fluid Dynamic exams...much harder than any test I think I have ever taken. But I sure did learn how to interpret, dissect and solve crazy problems in a hurry (and a whole lot of humility). Chem Eng btw.
 
want2beadoc said:
Panda, you just love starting fights don't you? 😉 Sure what you say is the truth, but still :laugh:. I like your blog.
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I earned my engineering degree. Everybody starts college wanting to be an engineer or "pre-med." Most soon fall by the wayside.
 
I have a Computer Science degree from UCSD and am currently going back to school for my pre med reqs. Just adding my two cents:

I shadowed a cosmetic surgeon for about 3 months who graduated top of his class at Harvard. He got honors in 12 of 15 clinical rotations at Harvard. He spent his first 2 years pursuing a CS degree before switching to pre med at UCSD. I asked him if med school was harder or CS, he said CS.

My brother is going to UCSF right now and is in his fourth year. As an undergrad, he said an "Intro to Java" class was the hardest class he's ever taken. As a CS major I could have done that class blindfolded.

I don't think it's an issue of who is smarter than who, but an issue of how we were trained to think. I think once I get to med school I'll have a lot of trouble memorizing stuff like the previous posters, but an easier time with applying concepts. I don't want to stir up anything, these are just two true accounts of a couple of people I know. I guess I'll really find out if I can handle it when I get to med school. Wish me luck!
 
Panda Bear said:
Generally speaking, engineering is one of the last bastions of high academic standards left in higher education. You can't bull**** your way through an engineering curriculum like you can in most other things.

Sorry.
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inshanesworld said:
Yeah, so what? Try a test where you have to calculate the change of energy and mass of an ice cube falling through a non-Newtonian fluid using a broken abacus and an Atari. That was just question 1 of a 5 question test done in 50 minutes for Intro to Engineering. Maybe an exaggeration...but really, damn, I remember those Fluid Dynamic exams...much harder than any test I think I have ever taken. But I sure did learn how to interpret, dissect and solve crazy problems in a hurry (and a whole lot of humility). Chem Eng btw.
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Yes, we're all very impressed.
 
NonTradMed said:
...However, med school never lets me rest and enjoy what I'm learning. I'm also rushing! rushing! rushing! And I guess that's the part I have the hardest time adjusting to...
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Exactly - I'd love to be able to investigate one of these pathways and look at how the breakdown of said pathway relates to disease. My knee-jerk reflex, my training is to make the connections, apply this concept to a patient, but I don't have the time - I have to look at the next subject.

In defense of my school, they do a good job of giving you opportunities to learn the clinical applications. As an example, we went over collateral or redundant blood supply in the arm and how the anatomy compensates for occlusions at different points.

Northerner - Read my post - I wrote about how I have to fight against my training, not how smart I am. You bio guys have trained yourselves to be great knowledge sponges. I have to struggle to compete with you all.
 
Panda Bear said:
I earned my engineering degree. Everybody starts college wanting to be an engineer or "pre-med." Most soon fall by the wayside.
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And then there's the real wackos who are crazy enough to declare BOTH engineering and premed as freshmen. 😉
 
Another Chem Engineer here.

I see the first two years similar to the period that I spent learning alphabets/ numerals/multiplication tables. No logic can be found going from A to G and then from H to Z. I just learnt it. And in Grade 2, it was, what is 4 times 4. No questions asked, again. But it sure comes handy even today.
 
ChemE also, although I'm six years out from grad school and five years out from any sort of engineering employment, and steadily losing any sense of connection to that intellectual sphere. Several months ago when I was moving, I ran across a binder of my old design projects. Skimming through what now appears to be pages and pages of incomprehensible glyphs, I absentmindedly thought to myself "wish I was bright enough to do stuff like this..." before realizing, oh yeah... I used to do stuff like that, before I decided it would be more fulfilling to stick my finger up people's asses for a living.
 
i'm so glad to see this thread. i was an engineer, now an M1. i'm having a really tough time, especially compared to some of my classmates who were bio majors. it's all about figuring out a different way to study.

all i can say is that i can't wait until 3rd year!!!
 
sacrament said:
ChemE also, although I'm six years out from grad school and five years out from any sort of engineering employment, and steadily losing any sense of connection to that intellectual sphere. Several months ago when I was moving, I ran across a binder of my old design projects. Skimming through what now appears to be pages and pages of incomprehensible glyphs, I absentmindedly thought to myself "wish I was bright enough to do stuff like this..." before realizing, oh yeah... I used to do stuff like that, before I decided it would be more fulfilling to stick my finger up people's asses for a living.
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One of the things I didn't like about going straight into medical school from college is that I'll likely never obtain PE licensure (mainly because of the experience requirement). I think medicine will be more fulfilling in the long run. Oh well, you can't live all the dreams. 😉
 
want2beadoc said:
I think medicine will be more fulfilling in the long run.
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So did I. I've since come to the conclusion that the only things I find truly fulfilling in life are the same things I found fulfilling when I was two years old. Making a big doody and taking a long nap.
 
sacrament said:
So did I. I've since come to the conclusion that the only things I find truly fulfilling in life are the same things I found fulfilling when I was two years old. Making a big doody and taking a long nap.
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...and for me, sucking the life out of women.
 
Former BME major here

Medschool seems to be going ok so far....Did well in anatomy except for the practical on the final...but i did pretty well on the shelf exam

All the memorization for biochem and genitics is tough though, not looking forward to my first test in biochem on monday

good luck to the rest of you
 
sandg said:
The first few weeks were a bit of a struggle as I came to terms with not being able to know a few key equations and principles and reason things out from there.
Click to expand...

I think the problem I had, which may be the same with some of the other engineers out there, was in the approach to exams. We are used to developing the answer during the test using concepts, principles and basic equations. Thats more or less a disaster. Here the answer to every single question is given to you in the books and lecture notes. To do well you must cram every single question-answer combo. Well, back to my cramming folks...
 
Friday said:
I think the problem I had, which may be the same with some of the other engineers out there, was in the approach to exams. We are used to developing the answer during the test using concepts, principles and basic equations. Thats more or less a disaster. Here the answer to every single question is given to you in the books and lecture notes. To do well you must cram every single question-answer combo. Well, back to my cramming folks...
Click to expand...

totally agree
 
I think it still helps to reason stuff out while studying. For example why do they call it a certain structure falciform ligament? (falci = sickle like). After understanding the Latin roots, it helps you picture the structure. How do you tell the difference between a vein and artery during a practical? (higher transmural pressure in artery = stiffer). Recognizing patterns and why the body works helps with memory retention and information overload.
 
I was a chemical enigineer in undergrad. When I got to med school I had to learn a whole new way of studying. It was pretty rough during first year. I wasn't used to having to memorize so much minutia. In undergrad you just needed to know how to use the equations and work through the problems.

Now I'm in my third year and things have been going pretty well so far. I was always a more hands on learner, so being in the hospital and applying concepts to real patients is really helping me do well. I wish there had been more hands on type learning during the first two years because I might have done a lot better.
 
Mixtli said:
I think it still helps to reason stuff out while studying. For example why do they call it a certain structure falciform ligament? (falci = sickle like). After understanding the Latin roots, it helps you picture the structure. How do you tell the difference between a vein and artery during a practical? (higher transmural pressure in artery = stiffer). Recognizing patterns and why the body works helps with memory retention and information overload.
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I can totally relate! This is exactly why being an engineering major and Latin minor in college helped so much. 🙂
 
Friday said:
I think the problem I had, which may be the same with some of the other engineers out there, was in the approach to exams. We are used to developing the answer during the test using concepts, principles and basic equations. Thats more or less a disaster. Here the answer to every single question is given to you in the books and lecture notes. To do well you must cram every single question-answer combo. Well, back to my cramming folks...
Click to expand...

I loved taking medical school tests. Multiple choice tests are so easy compared to tests where you are presented with a scenario and have to work out a design showing all of your steps (a typical engineering exam). If you get a test with four problems and screw up or didn't know how to do one of them you automatically reduce your grade to dangerous territory. In medical school we had 200+ questions on each test so you could miss 40 or so before you got into the danger zone.

I didn't do that great in medical school but I never failed a test, eventually got the residency I wanted, and I didn't study all that much in first and second year. I wasn't even all that stressed after I got over the initial shock and figured that odds on a large multiple choice test are always in the taker's favor.

The hardest multiple choice test I ever took was the Professional Engineering exam where the choices are numbers, one of which is the correct solution (allowable load, required bracing spacing, etc) and can only be arrived at after working the problem out. And it is very difficult to eliminate wrong answers because your choices might be something like "4 feet, 4 feet 6 inches, five feet...etc.)
 
Friday said:
I think the problem I had, which may be the same with some of the other engineers out there, was in the approach to exams. We are used to developing the answer during the test using concepts, principles and basic equations. Thats more or less a disaster. Here the answer to every single question is given to you in the books and lecture notes. To do well you must cram every single question-answer combo. Well, back to my cramming folks...
Click to expand...


That's why engineers are smarter than doctors.
 
Friday said:
I think the problem I had, which may be the same with some of the other engineers out there, was in the approach to exams. We are used to developing the answer during the test using concepts, principles and basic equations. Thats more or less a disaster. Here the answer to every single question is given to you in the books and lecture notes. To do well you must cram every single question-answer combo. Well, back to my cramming folks...
Click to expand...

so true...well said
 
hey you guys.

i was a chemE major and now a second year.

let me just tell ya that second year is so much better than first. although there is just as much memorization, you actually start to solve some cases.

i'm not saying its an intellectual orgasm or anything...just that its better than first year.

and yeah, i agree, for the most part so far its just memorize and regurgitate, over and over and over......😴
 
reading this thread right now has helped me immeasurably in my doubts about med school. I feel I'm in the same boat, better at understanding processes than rote memorization, but to see that lots of other people have overcome that makes me think I can as well. bio classes in college were a breeze, but I think that was only because we tackled the stuff at the same depth that we went to understand processes/physiology. once you go deeper still I think you have to divorce the trivia from the physio. I'll have to learn to compensate.
 
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