making the turn

[gmcsierra]

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i'm a mechanical engineering major and am thinking about starting my pre-med requirements. i don't know if i absolutely want to go through the process. i enjoy mechanical engineering for sure. i like the busy work and plugging the numbers. i am thinking about signing up for first sem. bio next year. my question about that is, do you think that taht is a good indicator of whether or not i will enjoy med school? all of my classes are extremely conceptual now, and bio i hear is more of rote memorization. i also am thinkinga bout volunteering in a hospital or clinic this summer. do you think that will give me an idea of wheter or not i want to go ahead and become a doctor? how do i go about doing this? what can i expect? i am interested in moving back to my home state afterwards and possibly starting a small-town practice. is this a reasonable idea?

(and if there are ;any ME's out there, or any sort of engineers, i could use some help)

 

[elperro]

I think the best way to find out if you are interested in medicine is to shadow a physician for a while. Better yet, shadow a couple of different specialties. With your background you may really enjoy radiology, orthopedics, or some specialty in which lots of neat toys are used. Medicine is so awesome because there is a niche for almost every personality. I don't think first year biology will give you a good indication of how you will like medicine.

 

[Adcadet]

well, I'm only about to start my undergraduate medical education, but I have been involved in health care and medicine in a few pretty significant ways. And none of these looked anything like my bio classes. At best, my upper level bio classes looked like research, which only vaguely resembles clinical medicine. See if you can find a doctor to shadow. I shadowed a doc and it was totally worth it. It showed me that I would love to be a doctor, even if I was in one of the specialties that I'm least interested in because the basic "doctoring" stuff was all there. I'd suggest finding a doctor and shadowing him/her every day for at least a week. See everything they do, from 6:30 AM meetings to late night rounds. It might also be worth while to shadow a few different doctors just to get a feel for how varied the practice of medicine can be between specialties and people.

You could also start volunteering at a hospital, clinic, or some other area that will let you see clinical medicine. Perhaps physical rehab - that seems like an engineer-type thing to do (since it involves the physics of motion and often involves medical devices).

 

[aydinhatemi]

HI,
I am engineering major too (EE) I know it is a lot of memorizing. We are all use to the number game and now it puts you in a new ball game. Good luck dough. OF course we need people who have different experiences with life not just another cookie-cutter, bio undergraduate. IF you can pass ME classes do not worry about bio but be ready to memorize a lot. So all you need is a bigger RAM and harddisk. It is like internet browsing. As far as your memory is good you do not need a good cpu, (CLERON is just fine) >>>> 🙂 Hehehe but do not get me wrong.
BIO and ORG are just memorizing and memorizing a lot. Anybody who study hard enough can get a decent grade. But when it comes to engineering it does not matter how hard they try some people simply can not get them (Know is from my tutoring experience) It comes naturally.

 

[gwyn779]

I majored in physics undergrad, which has the same conceptual focus rather than memorization. I did worse in all my premed req's than physics classes because, honestly, I hate just memorizing $hit. But I knew I wanted to be a doctor and that's what has kept me going through the 1st 2 years of med school, which is definitely all about memorizing. Occasionally we get to taste clinical experiences and they are so worth all the crap. Anyway, I think the best way to know if you want to be a doctor is to shadow someone for a while (not just a day) or volunteer.