Medicine as intellectually stimulating???

[Ross434]

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I would like to raise some sort of debate about this topic. A lot of people say that medicine is really intellectually stimulating. I, on the other hand, would somewhat disagree with this idea, in saying that medical school and the medical profession do not actually require an extremely high level of raw brain power. I think fields like physical chemistry research, theoretical physics, math research, and biochem engineering would be more intellectually rigorous and provide a bigger challenge. What do you guys/gals think?? Right now its coming down to a decision for me as to whether i want money and a cool career (medicine) but not being able to be challenged with vastly complex intellectual puzzles.. Or else if i want to be really challenged and have intellectual stimulation on a high level (ie: math phd), but have less money and a less stable career.

 

[melimi]

i think it depends on what part of medicine ur talking about
cuz any sort of medical research would be intellectually stimulating
like, it requires the researcher to form a hypothesis, go about actually performing the experiment, etc
i guess the diagnosing part of medicine would also be included in that category. cuz u always think of diagnosis as a "checklist" approach, but in reality a lot of things come into context when trying to figure out whats wrong w/ a person. thats the part i like about it.

 

[drguy22]

I would like to raise some sort of debate about this topic. A lot of people say that medicine is really intellectually stimulating. I, on the other hand, would somewhat disagree with this idea, in saying that medical school and the medical profession do not actually require an extremely high level of raw brain power. I think fields like physical chemistry research, theoretical physics, math research, and biochem engineering would be more intellectually rigorous and provide a bigger challenge. What do you guys/gals think?? Right now its coming down to a decision for me as to whether i want money and a cool career (medicine) but not being able to be challenged with vastly complex intellectual puzzles.. Or else if i want to be really challenged and have intellectual stimulation on a high level (ie: math phd), but have less money and a less stable career.

well lets put it this way...

so you go through 4 yrs of medical school and about 4 years of training in residency. You learn from textbooks that if a patient comes in with disease A, then he/she should present with a particular list of symptoms. Well this patient comes in, and there are some of those symptoms but not all, what do you do now? You have to be able to think of your feet and make split second decisions, especially when you have patients that have many illnesses together and not just one. For example, diabetes and heat disease, they go hand in hand and to some extent they affect one another. Or how about the fact that diabetes causes neuropathy. Doctors treating these patients have to make sure that medications dont interact with one another. if the doctor prescribes neurontin for the neuropathy, then he/she has to make sure that the medication doesnt affect the heart medications( coreg, amidarone, digoxin, etc), make sure it doesnt affect diabetic medication ( humulog, glucotrol, etc etc) . If that isnt a complex puzzle I really dont know what is. In addition to that, the doctors usually only have one shot to get the correct medications, researchers, can mess up and try again with a fresh new sample or even a new monkey. Once a doctor kills a patient.....you get the picture.

The same thing goes with surgery. If you do a particular surgery on a patient, you cant guarantee that you will perform it in the same way on the next patient. what if the patient has complications during the surgery? the doc has to adapt to those changes and modify his/her strategy ON THE SPOT. Whereas researchers, can modify it at any time they wish. i have also see researchers abandon studies becuase it produced no results. Can doctors just give up on patients?

i dunno..maybe im just rambling on and on without making my point...

o well... 😎

 

[Acherona]

I would like to raise some sort of debate about this topic. A lot of people say that medicine is really intellectually stimulating. I, on the other hand, would somewhat disagree with this idea, in saying that medical school and the medical profession do not actually require an extremely high level of raw brain power. I think fields like physical chemistry research, theoretical physics, math research, and biochem engineering would be more intellectually rigorous and provide a bigger challenge. What do you guys/gals think?? Right now its coming down to a decision for me as to whether i want money and a cool career (medicine) but not being able to be challenged with vastly complex intellectual puzzles.. Or else if i want to be really challenged and have intellectual stimulation on a high level (ie: math phd), but have less money and a less stable career.

Medicine is very much an art/skill that you excel at through practice. I would agree those other subjects provide a greater intellectual challenge. You don't have to practice with an MD though, you can always do biomedical research which is probably more "intellectual". On the other hand if you have the interest and ability to do a math phd, you should go for it. Not everyone can do that, and I imagine if you are someone who could enjoy doing math for a living you probably wouldn't enjoy being a doc. I mean is a little extra money worth doing a job that bores you for the rest of your life? btw if you go into business/wall street after getting your phd you can probably make way more than a doctor.