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vishnupatel

vishnupatel

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Hi everyone,

I'm a new poster, long-time lurker on SDN threads. I had a quick question regarding some med school. I have known for a long time that I want to be a doctor. I have wanted to be a doctor ever since a doctor saved my mother while while we were visiting family in Chennai, India. It was actually malaria that she was suffering from! They have a horrible public health system set up over there!

And over the last few years I have been shadowing doctors and have come to fall in love with the profession. You know the typical pre-med story! 🙂 I have shadowed cardiologists, neurologists, family physicians, surgeons, and everyone else out there. And the ability to save someone's life and be there during the important milestones of someone's life is something that no other profession can provide.

But there is only one small problem. The highest grade I ever got in a science class was a D+. I can't really understand what the numbers have to do with all the elements on the charts. I mean, I can read the charts and see how different things work. It's just boring and doesn't make sense to me.

But I know for a fact that I'm great at medicine. When I shadow the cardiologist I can usually predict right along with the doctor what's wrong with the patient. And when I tell a patient that I'm going to be a doctor, they always praise me and tell me what a great doctor I'll turn out to be b/c of my patient-physician skill. Even the doctors I shadow tell me that they never use the science that they learn in medical school. They just have to remember a few procedures/skills from residency. And the surgeon I saw calls himself a glorified boyscout (all he does is sew and cut all day). Sorry - I'm not trying to be boastful or rude. But it just gets me riled up sometimes. Usually, the neurologist I shadow has 3 - 4 diagnoses that he prescribes to his patients. And I can usually tell what type of diagnosis the patient needs by just what part of town he is from. It's not rocket science!

But the point of this post is to find out if there are any programs out there where I can bypass some of the science stuff, and just start learning the medicine. I know that if I could just skip the stupid organic chemistry stuff and physics stuff with all the number manipulations, I would excel as a doctor.

Does anyone know what I should do? I know that in India, people start medical school right after high school and never have to deal with all those crazy science subjects in college. But I really want to stay in the States - everytime I go to India I always get sick from something (weak stomach). Are there any programs that let you bypass the sciences that are unrelated to medicine.
 
Lol. This has got to be one of the best troll posts I have ever read:laugh:
 
If you don't like the subject area, consider going into jobs with similar interactions. Like nursing, psychiatry, dent, and/or DO programs etc. These are pretty much easier versions of medicine. Of course they have less prestige/pay, medicine is an elite profession.
 
vishnupatel said:
But I know for a fact that I'm great at medicine. When I shadow the cardiologist I can usually predict right along with the doctor what's wrong with the patient.

And I can usually tell what type of diagnosis the patient needs by just what part of town he is from. It's not rocket science!
Click to expand...

LOL@ your entire post, but these in particular.
 
Sorry - I'm trying to be serious. I have cousins overseas in India that don't know the first thing about math or science (I know, pretty rare). And he is going to be a cardio-thoracic surgeon in a few months.

I could try to do the same. But I always get really sick in India (twice diarrhea during one trip - sorry if that's TMI).

I know that it can be done. I love helping people with their problems and being a doctor is one of the best things that fits my personality. It's just the science part that is the limiting factor. I know that I don't want to do research anyways - I'll be upfront about that.
 
What's up with all these science-hating threads lately?
 
You're in medical school, though. Isn't it all just memorization??!
 
If you like med shouldn't you like science. I mean one is built upon the other. The whole reason medicine works is because you have the science that backs it up. Yea its great to prescribe a pill to cure something but if you don't know why it cures it, you're screwed if any case deviates from the norm.

I don't like engineering, can't I just skip ahead to building rockets for NASA?
 
mfrizzo3 said:
I'm curious how you diagnosed malaria?!? Your must have mad skillz. :idea:
Click to expand...

Well he didn't actually diagnose her, the doctor did.

But if he did, I would guess he would make the diagnosis based on what part of town she was from 🙄
 
That's not true, though. Wait until your in residency (or just to talk to doctors nowadays) and ask them about the organic chemical reactions behind the drugs that they are prescribing.

They don't know much more than what a commercial during the Nightly News would tell you (I especially like the ones for Allegra with the happy face)! 🙂
 
vishnupatel said:
You're in medical school, though. Isn't it all just memorization??!
Click to expand...

Uh...not quite. Sure, memorization is a bulk of it. But if you don't how the facts you memorize relate to different scenarios, you will be SOL. Anatomy is a big example of this. You can sit down and memorize parts of the human body in its normal state, but if you don't know how everything interacts conceptually, it can be tough. Heck, Physiology is probably 90% conceptual and uses a lot of physics(and YES, it will come back and nip you in the butt)
 
No, I didn't diagnose malaria back then.

I started diagnosing conditions when I was in high school (seriously). All it takes is an internet connection and access to Wikipedia and WebMD (seriously, Wikipedia is a great resource - ask those med students out there).
 
vishnupatel said:
You're in medical school, though. Isn't it all just memorization??!
Click to expand...
It's pretty obvious that you have no clue what you're talking about when it comes to both medical school and the practice of medicine itself. Med school isn't about just memorization; you have to understand what you learn. Physiology is the foundation for medicine and it's a very conceptual subject. You have to understand why something happens and you also need to know all the little details.

Regarding your issues with classes like chemistry and physics, did you know that you use both subjects in medicine? Acid/base physiology is a pretty important topic and you need some physics to understand physiology. If the highest grade you ever got in a science class was a D+, who are you to say whether those classes are important or not? And I call BS regarding your statement that you were able to diagnose patients accurately, especially by just knowing which part of town they're from.

If you have always done so poorly in science classes, how could you have the foundations to diagnose someone? Did you just randomly guess any diseases you had heard of on the news and one of them turned out to be right? That's not the same as diagnosing someone.
 
vishnupatel said:
No, I didn't diagnose malaria back then.

I started diagnosing conditions when I was in high school (seriously). All it takes is an internet connection and access to Wikipedia and WebMD (seriously, Wikipedia is a great resource - ask those med students out there).
Click to expand...

aaaahhh webMD, the definitive source for medical information. (9x out of 10 it says you have cancer. fantastic!)
 
vishnupatel said:
No, I didn't diagnose malaria back then.

I started diagnosing conditions when I was in high school (seriously). All it takes is an internet connection and access to Wikipedia and WebMD (seriously, Wikipedia is a great resource - ask those med students out there).
Click to expand...
Wow...this has got to be a troll.

Edit: This is the first time I've called someone a troll. Do I win something?
 
Kaushik said:
Wow...this has got to be a troll.

Edit: This is the first time I've called someone a troll. Do I win something?
Click to expand...

I called someone a troll for the first time today as well!


I don't care if this guy is a troll though, he's pretty funny :laugh:
 
OK guys - you know what I meant!!! I wouldn't actually tell the doctor what is wrong with the patient - I would just predict and give my humble opinion.

If you guys were in med school/residency you would realize how valuable of a source wikipedia is. Many of my friends use it as a supplement to the lectures in class.
 
And the med students are usually just printing out the wikipedia page and trying to memorize it.


No Science!!!!
 
vishnupatel said:
I started diagnosing conditions when I was in high school (seriously). All it takes is an internet connection and access to Wikipedia and WebMD (seriously, Wikipedia is a great resource - ask those med students out there).
Click to expand...

I'll admit that Wikipedia can be very helpful if you already have some idea of what you are looking for. If you have two probably diagnoses? Yes, by all means hit the internet. If someone has one very rare symptom? Yes, wiki will probably help. If you have someone with generalized signs of an infection? No, it probably isn't going to tell you exactly which microbe is making your patient sick. For some things, you need your own knowledge base. You need to learn to recognize and understand medical patterns, and for that you need science.

For the record, I agree with the above posters.:troll:

I don't know why I felt the need to even write all of this.
 
ChenMary said:
If you don't like the subject area, consider going into jobs with similar interactions. Like nursing, psychiatry, dent, and/or DO programs etc. These are pretty much easier versions of medicine. Of course they have less prestige/pay, medicine is an elite profession.
Click to expand...

I don't know if you realize... but psychiatrists and DOs both go through the same training as any other doc in med school, and have the same pre-med requirements. Psychiatrists also get paid quite handsomely.

Edit: To the original post... I wouldn't trust a doctor who didn't understand science. Cool if you can get into med school that way, but I would personally avoid your practice.
 
Kaushik said:
We lost our e-troll-virginity on the same day?! OMG twins! What I just wrote doesn't sound right...but I'm going to leave it there anyways and hope for the best.
Click to expand...

Haha it's even funnier because they both got banned the same day!
 
I've been away from SDN too long...trolls and normal human beings look the same! 😱
 
I knew someone who was in a similar boat with you but a little different. He was excellent at science but just abhored. He didn't see how learning the molecular mass of carbon had anything to do with the drugs he was prescribing. He understood that it was important for the researchers to understand all those things and be able to properly understand the interactions.

But at the end of the day all he wanted to do was just see patients and be able to help patients. He decided that he would bypass all the science that was involved and just start school in Bangladesh. School over there was a fraction of the cost compared to the States. All he had to do was pay $2,000 over the four years. Over the four years of the program all he did was memorize every single word in the USMLE prep course and he did great on his boards (98%). Right now, he is considering some of the top surgery programs in the country.

Don't give up hope - man. Remember: When a door closes, try to sneak through the window.
 
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