Philosophical Question.

[S. Ahmed]

Hi all:
I am almost addicted to this site. I love to read all the articles, very inspiring for an electrical engineer.

I am honestly curious to know why do you want to go to medical school? I don't know if people are honest when they are asked this question in an interview or application. But since this is sort of anonymous..I thought people might be more open.

would love to know why people want to become a doctor? Is helping people your main driving force?
How important is financial security?

I, personally, want to be a doctor because I want to work with people, help people, especially in the poor/rural areas. As an engineer, I make a decent living and 9-5 work hours, very flexible. So, I care much less about financial gain in medical career.

Anyways..please skip this email if you are bothered by it. But email me if you care to share.

Thanks,
Shahab
[email protected]
[email protected]

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[none]

I personally want to be an MD because I want to be able to apply my research. I want to be able to design drugs and other treatments and then literally be able to administer the clinical trials. I don't want to do great animal research, come up with something amazing...and then have to hand over all control to an MD to see it through.

 

[Olsen]

None,

Do MD's do a lot of drug design? I was under the impression they left most rational ligand design to chemists. Heck...unfortunately most of the compounds made today are from combinatorial laboratories. This pushes rational design right out the window in favor of the shotgun approach. If you can design and synthesize compounds in your lab more power to you!

 

[none]

Chemistry is a very popular graduate program for MD/PhDs...

 

[Mystique]

I want to become a doc because I want to be a caregiver in that PARTICULAR capacity. I could have chosen nursing or "others", but the patient contact/relationship isn't the same. Also, I've grown up around the medical community (my dad's a doc and so are many of our friends/cousins) and have grown to love and admire what they do.

To be honest, financial security isn't at the top of my list. I really don't care to drive a Benz or a BMW (and plus they've lost their "status" symbol now that they've become more affordable), and I'm not materialistic. I love the possibility of building a dream house to my liking, but the rest of the money would probably go into investments and savings...and towards my (future) kids' educations.


Unfortunately, I don't have a "heart-wrenching" story for the "why"...just "ordinary" reasons.

 

[catengr]

I want to be a doctor because I love the problem solving aspect, as well as being a caregiver. I think it will be exciting to possess the body of knowledge required of a physician. I am a mechanical engineer, so the money is not a driver. However, I wouldn't quit my job and sell my house if the pay was poor. My wife wouldn't let me.

 

[S. Ahmed]

Glad to see many replies. I think unlike many other professions (such as law, business, even DDS (ooops) )..most people who are interested to get into medicine have good intentions. I admire that in doctors and future docs. I don't mean to offend anyone. I am sure there are good people with good intentions who go into those other fields. If I did offend anyone, I am sincerely sorry.

Someone mentioned doctor's don't do drug design. By and large, that is true. But if you do MD/Ph.D, you might be able to do active research in drug development. I think such an intention is a noble one too.

As far as I am concerned, I am happy with my Toyota Camry. Its not that I don't like expensive
cars, but I think about poor people all the time.
And I would like to dedicate portion of my time to help poor people if I ever become a physician.

Take care all..Gotta get back to work.

 

[FLY]

Wow, a lot of engineerers running around, I guess this is a good time to ask this question... I could never really get this questions answered to my satisfaction.

What is the difference b/w bio-engineering and bio-medical-engineering? Do they deal with plants or animals or both?

And if engineering is applied math, how can you combine biology and math?? thanks in advance if someone care to answer...

 

[sundevil1]

rational drug design, what an oxymoron

 

[USeF]

digitalized: being that I'm not an engineer major, I can't answer the discrepency question, but I will try and answer the biology and math Q

The function determining the many spirals in nature (seashells, snails etc.) is based on polar coordinates. The branching of trees and even some microrganisms can be explained through chaos and fractals. There's a whole branch of 'biomath' called <a href="http://www.bio.brandeis.edu/biomath/populate/popula14.html" target="_blank">Theoretical Evolutionary Ecology</a>. Let's not forget Fibonacci numbers and exponential growth of bacteria!
I could go on and on and on and on.. but sleep sounds better now.

 

[gower]

There is a classic work you should look for: On Growth and Form, by D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson. It was published about 1948, more or less, and discusses the many applications of mathematics in understanding biological morphology. As best as I can recall, I believe it was published by Cambridge University Press. Try the card catalog in your library or ask the librarian for help in locating a copy. My copy vanished years ago.

 

[pyra]

digitalized: I am a bioeng. major. Bioeng. and Biomed eng. is the same thing and has to deal with applying traditional engineering principles to the medical field. From my experience, this deals with animals and humans and less on plants. I don't know about the Biotech Bioeng. major at my school. But for the most part the research involves animal testing to make artifical organs, pacemakers, synthetic implants etc.

Bio and math can be applied by studying the forces in the body, like the flow of blood, the movement of limbs, and making an equation to model that. Like if you are making a stent to be applied in a vessel, you need to model the flow of blood past that stent and other forces involved.