How much of the sciences do practicing Physicians need to know

[hs2013]

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How much of the sciences do you actually need to remember and understand and be able to apply once you are actually working as a doctor?

You go through so many courses such as gen chem, o chem, biochem, physics, genetics, cell/molec, phys, immuno, etc.... and learn so much about the body and world at micro level but how much do you really need to know and understand when you are working?

I ask because I really am not a huge fan of the sciences, I'm good at them and they come easy, but I could care less about chemistry, physics, genetics, cell/molecular, and so on. I like more of the patient care aspect of medicine and treatments and improving health.

 

[mvenus929]

Depends on what field you end up going into.

Surgeons need to know a lot of anatomy. The rest of us need a fundamental understanding of anatomy.

Geneticists need to know a lot about different types of genetic diseases, their inheritance patterns, etc, so they can 1) diagnose said diseases, and 2) provide counseling to a couple about the risk of an offspring having said disease. Also, if they do metabolic diseases, they need to know a lot about biochemistry. Interpreting plasma amino acid profiles, urine organic acid profiles, and acylcarnitine profiles are some of their bread and butter. They're super smart because basically their entire field is knowing random details about a lot of things.

Cardiologists need to know a decent amount about physics. Flow dynamics are one of the reasons you can hear murmurs and have Tet spells.

Endocrinologists need to know a decent amount about biochemistry. We see patients with metabolic diseases (errors in gluconeogenesis, fatty acid oxidation defects), but also our basic endocrinopathies overlap a fair amount with biochem--for my board exam, I need to know the entire adrenal hormone synthesis pathway, as well as which hormones have nuclear vs cytostolic vs cell membrane receptors and how activation of those receptors trigger changes in the cell. Understanding the underlying defect in McCune-Albright syndrome allows you to predict what systems might be affected and allows you to screen for problems in those areas. Obviously, this is my field 🙂

Infectious Disease docs need to know a lot about microbiology and pharmacology. For obvious reasons.

Hematologists/Oncologists need to know a lot about immunology, pharmacology, genetics. The different genetics of tumors influences the different types of chemotherapy and immunotherapy that are available.

Allergists/Immunologists need to know a lot about immunology. Knowing the difference between types 1-4 hypersensitivity reactions is their day-to-day job.

Generalists need to know enough about all of the above in order to figure out if the patient needs a referral to a subspecialist.

So, you need a solid foundation in the sciences in order to be a good physician. It does get more enjoyable when you can actually apply what you know to an individual patient, though.

 

[The Knife & Gun Club]

How much of the sciences do you actually need to remember and understand and be able to apply once you are actually working as a doctor?

You go through so many courses such as gen chem, o chem, biochem, physics, genetics, cell/molec, phys, immuno, etc.... and learn so much about the body and world at micro level but how much do you really need to know and understand when you are working?

I ask because I really am not a huge fan of the sciences, I'm good at them and they come easy, but I could care less about chemistry, physics, genetics, cell/molecular, and so on. I like more of the patient care aspect of medicine and treatments and improving health.

Yea you don’t USE a lot of the basic sciences on a day to day basis. No one needs to know the steps of the Krebs cycle to diagnose diabetes.

But you need a solid UNDERSTANDING of the sciences to be a good doctor. NPs can practice based on experience and algorithms, but being an MD/DO means you need to know WHY your treatments do what they do.

To interpret an EKG well youve gotta understand the basics of how electric currents work. You need to understand fluid dynamics to understand the different types of heart failure. Some understanding of chemistry and acid/bases is critical to work in nephrology.

So no you don’t use it. But yes you need to be able to fall back on it to understand how medicine is practiced at the highest levels

 

[aldol16]

You'll find that the better your basic science preparation in undergrad, the easier time you'll have during the pre-clinical years when you're learning medicine in terms of basic sciences. Nobody's going to ask you to derive the Nernst equation anymore but you better understand the principle of it and how to apply it during your neurosciences unit. As long as you have a broad understanding of the most important concepts from the basic sciences, you should find yourself in a good place to succeed in med school.

 

[Catalystik]

How much of the sciences do you actually need to remember and understand and be able to apply once you are actually working as a doctor?

As a pediatrician, I use physiology, physics, biochem, endocrinology, embryology, microbiology, genetics, anatomy, and pharmcology. Regularly. For half of those, I still refer to my med school textbooks on occasion.

 

[hs2013]

For you med students here, do you actually hate studying the sciences and things at such a detailed level like cellular functions, molecular functions, anatomy at an extremely detailed level, how pills work, details of chemistry, etc...

I freaking hate it all. I think it would be enjoyable to practice as a physician, but I don't know if I can take 4 years of med school studying that stuff, and spending the rest of my life having to have some decent understanding of it to be a good physician.

How many of you that hate it are actually able to grind through it w/o being miserable?

I got through my undergrad and did well, but never enjoyed studying the stuff, and I feel like I just can't take it anymore.

 

[hs2013]

As a pediatrician, I use physiology, physics, biochem, endocrinology, embryology, microbiology, genetics, anatomy, and pharmcology. Regularly. For half of those, I still refer to my med school textbooks on occasion.

Do you enjoy learning about it? And understanding those topics?
Do you think one can be a physician while hating those topics?

 

[Catalystik]

Do you enjoy learning about it? And understanding those topics?
Do you think one can be a physician while hating those topics?

I enjoyed learning the medically-related sciences and their interconnectedness. I feel understanding them, integrating them into clinical practice, and using them to grasp advances in medical practice is important to being a good physician. I can't imagine becoming a physician without having some joy in acquiring the requisite knowledge. But perhaps I have a skewed view, due to my involvement in medical education. Or, do I enjoy medical education more, due to my viewpoint?

 

[DiscusKeeper]

Do you enjoy learning about it? And understanding those topics?
Do you think one can be a physician while hating those topics?

What surprised me when I started medical school was how people with such a diverse set of skills and interests all came to study medicine. I was one of the people in my class who excelled in physiology, but I absolutely hated learning anatomy and embryology year 1. Because of this, I will not be a surgeon or a pediatric cardiologist (who deal with a lot of congenital heart issues, i.e. embryology). I also don't particularly enjoy biochemistry, which I have had to review quite a bit of leading up to step 1 in three weeks. Everyone likes some things and hates others, and medical school is all about finding where your interests lie within the profession.

However, if you hate every single one of your science classes, that might be a red flag in terms of it not being a right fit. But hating physics in undergrad, for example, is a super common experience and doesn't mean that you won't like medicine.

 

[jw3600]

I mean. What? Applying the science pragmatically is what medicine boils down to? You wanna be a doctor without knowing how meds work??

 

[siliso]

Well, man, I don’t know. I know I’m not diagramming any backside attack reactions from day to day on the wards. Then again I’m not called upon to do much trigonometry either. Signaling pathways and fluid/gas physics and so on come up. Physics explains chemistry and chemistry explains biology so I suppose the background is in there doing its thing for me regardless that I can’t draw a chair or a boat configuration anymore.

 

[IMG69]

Only thing I can't stand is OBS/GYN but I mean whatever you end up doing there'll always be something about it you don't like.. so either suck it up or move on 🙂

 

[hs2013]

Only thing I can't stand is OBS/GYN but I mean whatever you end up doing there'll always be something about it you don't like.. so either suck it up or move on 🙂

This is very true and one thing I use to rationalize staying on the med route, but it holds true only to a point. Not when you hate a majority of are required to learn and understand.

 

[mrbreakfast]

I freaking hate it all. I think it would be enjoyable to practice as a physician, but I don't know if I can take 4 years of med school studying that stuff, and spending the rest of my life having to have some decent understanding of it to be a good physician.

People become physicians because they think this kind of stuff is interesting. Physicians are physicians because they treat based on thought, understanding, and logical extrapolation. If you don't want to be an "expert," consider a PA program or nursing school.

I didn't particularly enjoy biochemistry, and you could argue I will never have to recall the Krebs cycle to devise a treatment plan. But "cellular functions, molecular functions, anatomy at an extremely detailed level, how pills work, details of chemistry, etc" is what you'll be studying 6-7 days/week for two years straight, at a level well beyond anything you've seen in undergrad (we routinely covered several hundred ppt slides a day). Consider what you're getting yourself into; the people in my class who couldn't bring themselves to study these things rigorously aren't in my class anymore.

 

[phonyreal98]

I did/still do. But I think that it's because the way I think about science fundamentally clashes with how it's taught and assessed in medical school.

 

[Lexdiamondz]

For you med students here, do you actually hate studying the sciences and things at such a detailed level like cellular functions, molecular functions, anatomy at an extremely detailed level, how pills work, details of chemistry, etc...

I freaking hate it all. I think it would be enjoyable to practice as a physician, but I don't know if I can take 4 years of med school studying that stuff, and spending the rest of my life having to have some decent understanding of it to be a good physician.

How many of you that hate it are actually able to grind through it w/o being miserable?

I got through my undergrad and did well, but never enjoyed studying the stuff, and I feel like I just can't take it anymore.

What the fxck did you think medical school was?

I'm sorry but I can't feel sorry for you. You already had 4 years to realise whether or not you liked the sciences. The entrance exam for medical school is literally a science exam. All of your licensing exams are applied science tests. Only an idiot would think otherwise.

 

[libertyyne]

No. I love learning about the world and the way medicine and our body works. It is this curiosity that keeps me interested and engaged in the material I am learning. I don't like the way that science is taught and tested at my school since it's an affair of rote memorization rather than application.

 

[Disciple of Sattar]

If you hate physi-ology but for some reason want to be a physi-cian, then have I got some bad news for you.

 

[siliso]

You can spend time with people and help them with their problems in any number of fields. If you don’t like learning about normal and abnormal physiology and diseases and how to treat them and why, medicine ain’t it for you. Cut your losses and get out.

 

[deleted407021]

Biochemistry is a major drag for me, as is a lot of pharmacokinetics. The reality is we have to know enough about it to do well on board exams and practice safely and effectively. In my experience, learning the basics has been more fun in third year since I can see it applied and it's at this time we start to learn more useful material and leave out annoying minutiae, at least to a degree.

 

[siliso]

If you just don’t like memorizing 20 steps of some signaling cascade in detail, or what are all the CD-## types of lymphocytes, take heart. You can dump all of that right out of your brain after you finish your exams.

 

[On_The_Way_Up]

If you don’t like the sciences then don’t apply to medical school. That’s like wanting to be a lawyer but you don’t like law. Or you want to be an engineer but don’t like math. Time to find something else. It’s an oxymoron to go to medical school and attempt all that studying when you don’t like any of the sciences. I mean it’s one thing to not like a few subjects but you’re saying you don’t like any of the sciences.

Why do you want to be a doctor? If your answer is to help people well then there are plenty of jobs out there for that without needing to know the sciences and applying them in your everyday work.

 

[Stagg737]

For you med students here, do you actually hate studying the sciences and things at such a detailed level like cellular functions, molecular functions, anatomy at an extremely detailed level, how pills work, details of chemistry, etc...

I freaking hate it all. I think it would be enjoyable to practice as a physician, but I don't know if I can take 4 years of med school studying that stuff, and spending the rest of my life having to have some decent understanding of it to be a good physician.

How many of you that hate it are actually able to grind through it w/o being miserable?

I got through my undergrad and did well, but never enjoyed studying the stuff, and I feel like I just can't take it anymore.

I love the subject matter, I just hated how quickly we were required to learn it all. Sucked all the joy out of it.

 

[sweetfragrance]

For you med students here, do you actually hate studying the sciences and things at such a detailed level like cellular functions, molecular functions, anatomy at an extremely detailed level, how pills work, details of chemistry, etc...

No, I don't hate studying it. This is actually a problem. What I DO HATE is the questions that test these things. Some people (like me) never study the right things that these questions test. That's why we are miserable in med school. But you, I think you'll do alright. Because you hate studying it, you'll go straight to the things that will be in these questions. You'll never miss a mark.

 

[Goro]

For you med students here, do you actually hate studying the sciences and things at such a detailed level like cellular functions, molecular functions, anatomy at an extremely detailed level, how pills work, details of chemistry, etc...

I freaking hate it all. I think it would be enjoyable to practice as a physician, but I don't know if I can take 4 years of med school studying that stuff, and spending the rest of my life having to have some decent understanding of it to be a good physician.

How many of you that hate it are actually able to grind through it w/o being miserable?

I got through my undergrad and did well, but never enjoyed studying the stuff, and I feel like I just can't take it anymore.

My best students love learning

 

[Goro]

For you med students here, do you actually hate studying the sciences and things at such a detailed level like cellular functions, molecular functions, anatomy at an extremely detailed level, how pills work, details of chemistry, etc...

I freaking hate it all. I think it would be enjoyable to practice as a physician, but I don't know if I can take 4 years of med school studying that stuff, and spending the rest of my life having to have some decent understanding of it to be a good physician.

How many of you that hate it are actually able to grind through it w/o being miserable?

I got through my undergrad and did well, but never enjoyed studying the stuff, and I feel like I just can't take it anymore.

Time for Plan B

 

[smukke]

I mean. What? Applying the science pragmatically is what medicine boils down to? You wanna be a doctor without knowing how meds work??

That's how we end up with the anti-science, anti-vax, pro-alternative medicine docs.

 

[mvenus929]

No. I love learning about the world and the way medicine and our body works. It is this curiosity that keeps me interested and engaged in the material I am learning. I don't like the way that science is taught and tested at my school since it's an affair of rote memorization rather than application.

It’s really hard to appreciate how things work in the human body when you learn about them in silos or dissociated from the human body. I guarantee you, I would learn cytochrome p450 inducers much better if we ran through some scenarios where things went wrong.