Med school knowledge

[TheDBird90]

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I know that medicine is a rapidly changing science, and healthcare professionals have to take Continuing Medical Education courses to remain up-to-date in their field. So, as doctors, did some or most of what you learned in medical school become outdated (if any)? For example, in pharmacology, I believe one has to learn the details of some 200 drugs (don't know what it's like since I'm not a med student). Yet new pharmacology (or cellular biology for that matter) textbooks come out, and they differ substantially from what you've once learned, correct? I'm the kind of person who likes history because the core knowledge doesn't change much (if at all). So I just feel like reading the newest edition of a medical textbook will be a wasted effort, because there will be a new, updated edition anyway (yes, I'm a perfectionist, I've always been that way). Is there any medical knowledge that will always be useful and relevant throughout your lifetime? I've heard someone say that medicine is an eternal review, which I guess is true. Going back to pharmacology: what's the point of learning all those drugs in the first place if they become outdated? Perhaps teach general principles instead? I don't know, I'm just really curious as to what you (pl.) think.

 

[Mad Jack]

You need to learn all of the drugs because they're the ones you're actually giving, or your patient will be prescribed by other physicians, and thus you need to know their indications, side-effects, interactions, etc. That's not some esoteric, "why should we learn this" sort of thing. Furthermore, most drugs continue to be used basically forever, unless they are found to be unsafe. We discover new indications for old drugs all the time, and you'd be surprised at the utility of some medications, which can stretch across a wide range of pathologies (aspirin, valproic acid, hell, even some antibiotics like erythromycin have additional effects we're just starting to appreciate). Plus many of those new medications may not work for one patient, but an older medication will work astoundingly well- new doesn't mean better, it just means another option. If you don't like continuously learning, medicine is definitely not the field for you. I learned things in first year that are already being thrown out the window and we're unclear as to whether the latest findings or the old stuff will be present on the boards (the standards for cardiac markers, for instance, when diagnosing current and repeated MIs). We even have to learn a lot of very archaic information about obscure diseases that you will very likely never see because they demonstrate physiological or pathological principles that no other disease can. And a resurgence can always happen, or you could get a patient from an endemic area, so you never know.

We're very much in the infancy of medicine still. We didn't even have antibiotics until around 70 years ago, genetics wasn't understood in the slightest until very recently, and our surgical and medical treatments are actually often very crude (despite what television might have you think). If you want to be a doctor, you've got to embrace two things. One, you can never stop learning, or you'll be a damn terrible physician. Ignoring research and the evolution of the profession will literally kill your patients. Two, many of the things that you do will be looked back on by history as barbaric and crude, but necessary, because we're nowhere near the perfection of medicine. Almost every surgery, every procedure, and every medication we give today will likely be either eliminated or exist in a substantially different form in one hundred years, because medicine is essentially a technological field, and technology is evolving at an exponential pace.

History is fixed, aside from a finite number of facts that arise within your lifetime. History grows slowly, not evolutionarily. Medicine is evolving, alive, growing. If that isn't for you, go far, far away, because it will make you miserable.

 

[IgEdoc]

The best advice ever given to me in med school was that there is no realistic expectation for us as physician to know everything but we are expected to know where to seek an answer to a problem.

 

[Goro]

Jack, sSomewhere and somehow you have got to have this published!

You need to learn all of the drugs because they're the ones you're actually giving, or your patient will be prescribed by other physicians, and thus you need to know their indications, side-effects, interactions, etc. That's not some esoteric, "why should we learn this" sort of thing. Furthermore, most drugs continue to be used basically forever, unless they are found to be unsafe. We discover new indications for old drugs all the time, and you'd be surprised at the utility of some medications, which can stretch across a wide range of pathologies (aspirin, valproic acid, hell, even some antibiotics like erythromycin have additional effects we're just starting to appreciate). Plus many of those new medications may not work for one patient, but an older medication will work astoundingly well- new doesn't mean better, it just means another option. If you don't like continuously learning, medicine is definitely not the field for you. I learned things in first year that are already being thrown out the window and we're unclear as to whether the latest findings or the old stuff will be present on the boards (the standards for cardiac markers, for instance, when diagnosing current and repeated MIs). We even have to learn a lot of very archaic information about obscure diseases that you will very likely never see because they demonstrate physiological or pathological principles that no other disease can. And a resurgence can always happen, or you could get a patient from an endemic area, so you never know.

We're very much in the infancy of medicine still. We didn't even have antibiotics until around 70 years ago, genetics wasn't understood in the slightest until very recently, and our surgical and medical treatments are actually often very crude (despite what television might have you think). If you want to be a doctor, you've got to embrace two things. One, you can never stop learning, or you'll be a damn terrible physician. Ignoring research and the evolution of the profession will literally kill your patients. Two, many of the things that you do will be looked back on by history as barbaric and crude, but necessary, because we're nowhere near the perfection of medicine. Almost every surgery, every procedure, and every medication we give today will likely be either eliminated or exist in a substantially different form in one hundred years, because medicine is essentially a technological field, and technology is evolving at an exponential pace.

History is fixed, aside from a finite number of facts that arise within your lifetime. History grows slowly, not evolutionarily. Medicine is evolving, alive, growing. If that isn't for you, go far, far away, because it will make you miserable.

 

[gyngyn]

Jack, sSomewhere and somehow you have got to have this published!

Does the DO community have the equivalent of The Pharos?

 

[TheDBird90]

You need to learn all of the drugs because they're the ones you're actually giving, or your patient will be prescribed by other physicians, and thus you need to know their indications, side-effects, interactions, etc. That's not some esoteric, "why should we learn this" sort of thing. Furthermore, most drugs continue to be used basically forever, unless they are found to be unsafe. We discover new indications for old drugs all the time, and you'd be surprised at the utility of some medications, which can stretch across a wide range of pathologies (aspirin, valproic acid, hell, even some antibiotics like erythromycin have additional effects we're just starting to appreciate). Plus many of those new medications may not work for one patient, but an older medication will work astoundingly well- new doesn't mean better, it just means another option. If you don't like continuously learning, medicine is definitely not the field for you. I learned things in first year that are already being thrown out the window and we're unclear as to whether the latest findings or the old stuff will be present on the boards (the standards for cardiac markers, for instance, when diagnosing current and repeated MIs). We even have to learn a lot of very archaic information about obscure diseases that you will very likely never see because they demonstrate physiological or pathological principles that no other disease can. And a resurgence can always happen, or you could get a patient from an endemic area, so you never know.

We're very much in the infancy of medicine still. We didn't even have antibiotics until around 70 years ago, genetics wasn't understood in the slightest until very recently, and our surgical and medical treatments are actually often very crude (despite what television might have you think). If you want to be a doctor, you've got to embrace two things. One, you can never stop learning, or you'll be a damn terrible physician. Ignoring research and the evolution of the profession will literally kill your patients. Two, many of the things that you do will be looked back on by history as barbaric and crude, but necessary, because we're nowhere near the perfection of medicine. Almost every surgery, every procedure, and every medication we give today will likely be either eliminated or exist in a substantially different form in one hundred years, because medicine is essentially a technological field, and technology is evolving at an exponential pace.

History is fixed, aside from a finite number of facts that arise within your lifetime. History grows slowly, not evolutionarily. Medicine is evolving, alive, growing. If that isn't for you, go far, far away, because it will make you miserable.

Thank you, that makes so much sense. Sorry, I didn't mean to sound like I was complaining. I really do love learning, esp. reading textbooks, so I'll enjoy learning about medicine. Granted I'm not going to medical school, but I might try Medical Laboratory Science one day. I like the research side of things, the science of medicine, rather than patient interaction.

So I guess the knowledge DOES matter, it's just that new information builds on top of it, like a pyramid. It really does makes sense now.

 

[Goro]

Does the DO community have the equivalent of The Pharos?

"The DO" would suffice, I think.

 

[Mad Jack]

Jack, sSomewhere and somehow you have got to have this published!

Thanks 😀 I think I'll just stick to publishing my thoughts in threads on SDN for now. Someday I'm hoping to do some medical journalism though, so the thought is much appreciated.

 

[Mad Jack]

Thank you, that makes so much sense. Sorry, I didn't mean to sound like I was complaining. I really do love learning, esp. reading textbooks, so I'll enjoy learning about medicine. Granted I'm not going to medical school, but I might try Medical Laboratory Science one day. I like the research side of things, the science of medicine, rather than patient interaction.

So I guess the knowledge DOES matter, it's just that new information builds on top of it, like a pyramid. It really does makes sense now.

Oh, you didn't come off like a complainer, moreso as someone who doesn't enjoy a field with a fluctuating body of knowledge. And that's fine- medicine isn't for everyone, and we need people in fields that are less prone to full rewrites of their principles every few years. You basically have to study for the rest of your life, regardless of the position you hold in allied health or medicine, because there will always be new things coming at you. Lab science is actually evolving rapidly, and is one area in which what is done today might actually be worthless tomorrow. Older, less specific or sensitive tests like gel electrophoresis and agar plates are being replaced by fancy new molecular methods that are far more advanced than what we had in the past. Half of the things you learn about what to do in the lab might not be applicable within the next twenty years at this rate, so you'll essentially have to learn half an education's worth of new material just to keep up. And even with the current stuff, you'll probably find yourself looking up weird results to better understand them fairly frequently.

 

[TheDBird90]

Oh, you didn't come off like a complainer, moreso as someone who doesn't enjoy a field with a fluctuating body of knowledge. And that's fine- medicine isn't for everyone, and we need people in fields that are less prone to full rewrites of their principles every few years. You basically have to study for the rest of your life, regardless of the position you hold in allied health or medicine, because there will always be new things coming at you. Lab science is actually evolving rapidly, and is one area in which what is done today might actually be worthless tomorrow. Older, less specific or sensitive tests like gel electrophoresis and agar plates are being replaced by fancy new molecular methods that are far more advanced than what we had in the past. Half of the things you learn about what to do in the lab might not be applicable within the next twenty years at this rate, so you'll essentially have to learn half an education's worth of new material just to keep up. And even with the current stuff, you'll probably find yourself looking up weird results to better understand them fairly frequently.

I guess that's why healthcare is such a demanding field. At least you (probably) never get bored. But that's what makes medicine so fun! 🙂

 

[Cyberdyne 101]

You need to learn all of the drugs because they're the ones you're actually giving, or your patient will be prescribed by other physicians, and thus you need to know their indications, side-effects, interactions, etc. That's not some esoteric, "why should we learn this" sort of thing. Furthermore, most drugs continue to be used basically forever, unless they are found to be unsafe. We discover new indications for old drugs all the time, and you'd be surprised at the utility of some medications, which can stretch across a wide range of pathologies (aspirin, valproic acid, hell, even some antibiotics like erythromycin have additional effects we're just starting to appreciate). Plus many of those new medications may not work for one patient, but an older medication will work astoundingly well- new doesn't mean better, it just means another option. If you don't like continuously learning, medicine is definitely not the field for you. I learned things in first year that are already being thrown out the window and we're unclear as to whether the latest findings or the old stuff will be present on the boards (the standards for cardiac markers, for instance, when diagnosing current and repeated MIs). We even have to learn a lot of very archaic information about obscure diseases that you will very likely never see because they demonstrate physiological or pathological principles that no other disease can. And a resurgence can always happen, or you could get a patient from an endemic area, so you never know.

We're very much in the infancy of medicine still. We didn't even have antibiotics until around 70 years ago, genetics wasn't understood in the slightest until very recently, and our surgical and medical treatments are actually often very crude (despite what television might have you think). If you want to be a doctor, you've got to embrace two things. One, you can never stop learning, or you'll be a damn terrible physician. Ignoring research and the evolution of the profession will literally kill your patients. Two, many of the things that you do will be looked back on by history as barbaric and crude, but necessary, because we're nowhere near the perfection of medicine. Almost every surgery, every procedure, and every medication we give today will likely be either eliminated or exist in a substantially different form in one hundred years, because medicine is essentially a technological field, and technology is evolving at an exponential pace.

History is fixed, aside from a finite number of facts that arise within your lifetime. History grows slowly, not evolutionarily. Medicine is evolving, alive, growing. If that isn't for you, go far, far away, because it will make you miserable.