Higher level mathematics important for being a good physician-scientist?

[BraveNewWorld]

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Hello. I am currently a high school senior. I'm interested in becoming a physician-scientist, maybe in neuroscience.

Selecting courses for college, I've heard friends from my future prospective undergrad school tell me that taking Calculus 1 is an "easy A" and this (with Calc 2) would fulfill my math requirements and boost my GPA.

Currently, I am taking AP Calc AB. I am not doing so well; I have a B+. Throughout high school, I was never really "gifted" at mathematics. It always took me a long time to understand a mathematics concept. This was a detriment when I took Physics without basic Calculus. I began to see that a lot of the sciences required foundations in mathematics, since previously I was more focused on biology.

If I took the AP exam and scored a 4 or a 5 I would be able to start with Calculus 2 and finish Differential Equations by sophomore year.

I am wondering if it is a good idea to take higher level mathematics to better prepare myself, or to forgo it and simply take Calculus 1 and Calculus 2. Moreover, if physician-scientists even need higher level mathematics to begin with.

Thanks!

 

[pocillopora]

@gonnif is right, most schools require at least one semester of calculus and that calculus is practically useless in medical school aside from a very few physiology and biochemistry concepts. Statistics would serve you much much better in medical school and beyond. Also, unless you are wanting to do research in areas that actually require higher level mathematics (bio-med engineering, epidemiology, possibly biochemistry, etc), there wouldn't really be any value for you to take differential eqns, IMO.

 

[7331poas]

The bad news: some medical schools will not accept AP transferred credits as fulfilling required prereqs.
The good news: more and more medical schools are removing calc requirements and/or accepting statistics for math
The more good news: A solid foundation on understanding statistics is by far a much more important skillset than calc for medical research

Tons of graph theory arises out of calc 1-3.

 

[EventualMD]

For the vast majority of physicians, including physician scientists, graph theory is not nearly as important as understanding and interpretation of graphs for statistical analysis.

Most medical schools will also have a biostatistics/statistics department that will do free consulting for studies, so while it's important to have a good foundation in it, you don't have to know everything.

It's OK to collaborate!

 

[eteshoe]

Other than a solid understanding of statistics, the amount of math you'd need to know will be dependent on what you'd be studying on the PhD side. For example - I have an engineering background and thus I use DEs and PDEs for some of my modeling studies in my PhD. I also use my programming skills for my bioinformatics projects. So depending on your interests in college it may be pertinent to take a higher level math course or a lower level computer science courses

 

[7331poas]

For the vast majority of physicians, including physician scientists, graph theory is not nearly as important as understanding and interpretation of graphs for statistical analysis.

I know in our own studies we have needed to understand line shape theory. Its not a either or process. I would think PhDs in a hard science would need to understand calculus as well as calc based statistics.

 

[Pagan FutureDoc]

Strictly looking at it as an issue of gaining an acceptance to a MD/PhD program it may or may not be nessisary to have a strong background in calc.
This is going to be really dependent on the school and particular PhD program. Many schools seem to require you to be admitted to both the med school and a PhD program at the school to be an MD/PhD candidate. So basically if your PhD requires calc, you'll need it to get into the MD/PhD program.

You've got time to decide exactly what you will need over the next 3+ years.