unintellectual med students

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thomasina

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Does anybody feel similarly to me?

I'm an M1 and I find that most of my peers do not seem very intellectually curious. While many of them have done research and are certainly very intelligent, I feel that they're very practical-minded and do not seem to care about understanding why/how things work, and the greater context, and about experimental design. I feel so out of place because I loved talking about philosophy and art and mathematics in undergrad, but now I feel like that has been mostly replaced with conversations on very ... practical, day-to-day things. This general mindset seems to spill over into the way people approach studying and learning the material (which is admittedly a rote-memorization sort of deal, no way around it... but they just have no desire to learn more or learn why).

🙁

It's too early for me to make a decision about dropping out of med school vs staying in, but has anybody else felt this way? I've been hanging out with the PhD students and I feel much more at home.
 
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So, hang out with the PhD students. Don't quit on their account. I can understand where you're coming from. Besides doing the traditional science degree, I also majored in philosophy in undergrad. But this is med school; few people will have the patience to discuss the basis of morality or medical humanities.

In a sense, people are in med school because they tended to be practical minded. It's a self selecting process. Of course, you'll find your strain of folks too. But these first two years at least are the best time to be practical minded, because the system responds best to that kind of approach - i.e. good grades, Step 1, research etc.

Just keep the circle of friends you want and play the game. You could join groups, book clubs etc to feed the other side of your soul.
 
The fact that you felt the need to mention you're at a 'top 10-20' school already makes you look like a tool
 
thomasina said:
Does anybody feel similarly to me?

I'm an M1 at a top 10-20 school and I find that most of my peers do not seem very intellectually curious. While many of them have done research and are certainly very intelligent, I feel that they're very practical-minded and do not seem to care about understanding why/how things work, and the greater context, and about experimental design. I feel so out of place because I loved talking about philosophy and art and mathematics in undergrad, but now I feel like that has been mostly replaced with conversations on very ... practical, day-to-day things. This general mindset seems to spill over into the way people approach studying and learning the material (which is admittedly a rote-memorization sort of deal, no way around it... but they just have no desire to learn more or learn why).

🙁

It's too early for me to make a decision about dropping out of med school vs staying in, but has anybody else felt this way? I've been hanging out with the PhD students and I feel much more at home.
Click to expand...

welcome to medicine
 
You'll find that in the first two years, there is SO much detail that people often don't have the time to sit down and think about why XXX works and focus on drinking from that fire hydrant/eating pancakes/whatever. So for some, the dilemma is: "try to learn how/why this biochemical pathway works" vs. "making sure I actually study the material so I don't fail".

Physiology is one of the few classes that is less rote memorization and more understanding how the body works. It was one of my favorite med school classes, and personally, a better time than memorizing Anatomy till I was blue in the face.
 
I can't believe you removed the top 10 school thing. I thought it added something of value. You'd almost expect people at lower tier schools to be less intellectually curious.

Anyhow, I experience the same and it kind of puzzled me at first. I thought everyone at med school was going to be "my type" but turns out a couple geek out to way more details than I do and the majority are much more interested in just getting through this. C'est la vie. It's still delicious learning it all, isn't it?
 
you've had what, three weeks of medical school? what you're learning is the basics. you'll have more than your fill of explanations of why things are the way they are when you're going through pathophys
 
Wtf is the point of this post? Intellectually curious?

http://xkcd.com/610/

Maybe after countless days of staring at medical texts people just want to talk about something fun like football? That makes them less "intellectually curious?" Give me a break Mr. MS1 at a top 10 school
 
Why in god's name would that be something to drop out over?
 
Streets are tough. People getting trolled every day
 
You could have avoided this problem by attending a top 5 program.
 
Read the OP and thought "This person would fit in with Anastomoses"

Saw that you removed "top 10-20 med school". PND quoted it, so it's there for all of posterity. Enjoy the backlash over that one comment.

As to your original point, I do not want to discuss class things outside of class/study time. If we're watching a football game and you bring up the krebs cycle (besides more than a stupid joke like "oh boy, his legs are cramping, too much damn lactate in there naw mean) or literally anything else in class that I don't feel like talking about, I'm going to let you know about it.

I've been a science person all my life. I have no real interest in discussing philosophy in great detail. Thinking about 'why we are here' isn't important to me, because I have **** to do (be it fun or educational) and I can't waste time on stuff I don't care about.
 
Intellectually curious? Have you been to a physician's office before? 9 out of 10 times I guarantee you'd be more likely to talk about life/sports/current stuff/family than the latest scientific paper or hot journal article. I think some people get so sick of the academic stuff at some point that they'd rather talk about things most people deal with or are interested in. I think this is a prime reason why people think "anti-intellectualism" runs rampant. Just because people aren't interested in something 24/7 and want to actually talk about other things/focus on fun/practical stuff when free doesn't mean they are not intellectually curious or scientifically minded...
 
doctors are not scholars, yes get over it.
You will have a job in medicine, there are better fields if all you want is to circle jerk with your academic friends.
 
Solution:

1) Don't drop out, just graduate.

2) Do a residency in IM

3) +/- PhD

4) Work in academia

There you go, the ticket to mental masturbation heaven 🙂
 
thomasina said:
I feel so out of place because I loved talking about philosophy and art and mathematics in undergrad, but now I feel like that has been mostly replaced with conversations on very ... practical, day-to-day things. This general mindset seems to spill over into the way people approach studying and learning the material (which is admittedly a rote-memorization sort of deal, no way around it... but they just have no desire to learn more or learn why).

🙁

It's too early for me to make a decision about dropping out of med school vs staying in, but has anybody else felt this way? I've been hanging out with the PhD students and I feel much more at home.
Click to expand...

Before they get to know each other, people tend to talk about what they have in common, which for med students is often complaining about the boring lecturer that day or all the studying they have to do. Wait til you've made friends to start talking philosophy.

Med students also have to learn a lot more info in a shorter amount of time than Ph.D. students, at least from the programs I was exposed to, so it makes sense that outside of all that studying they might need more of a mental break than the Ph.D. kids.

And finally why on earth would this make you want to drop out of med school? Did you apply so you could make intellectually curious friends or to become a physician?
 
Two things to add to this:

One is that medical students are practical because medicine is practical. Yes, there will always be a need to advance the research, discover new treatments, and study the outcomes of various interventions and risk factors. But there is a far greater need (at least in terms of manpower) to attend to the day-to-day business of applying what we already know about the human body in order to treat the sick. That's what the vast majority of us signed up to do. Not better or worse than the OP's view, just a different mentality for the majority.

The other thing is that, the above being said, I do feel like medical students get a little bogged down in the mundane. Who can blame us, when there is so much we are expected to learn and do in so little time? But I do feel like we become more one-dimensional, and don't take enough time to take a step back and ask why we do what we do, how we could do it better, what it all means, how it makes us feel, where it fits in with our lives, our society, the world, whatever. So I do agree it would be nice to find a little more of that conversation in medical school.

Basically, OP, I'm not surprised that you're meeting with some resistance in this thread. But you may just represent the other end of the spectrum from where we all are, and it's nice to have some balance. So seek out others that want to ask those questions, and enjoy your conversations together. But seriously, don't drop out. That would be a waste.
 
You're an MS1 concerned that you're not getting enough intellectual stimulation? You're in for a rough career. Medicine doesn't encourage free thinking and deeper knowledge. Go become a PhD before it's too late.
 
Definitely drop out... I know a ton of very curious and talkative barristas I can introduce you to
 
Anastomoses said:
seriously? we need to go there?
Click to expand...

You're the one who went there. Besides, I don't know why you're worried about insulting the bottom 120ers; they're too stupid to understand it anyway.
 
Give it some time OP, you'll get to a point where you become like how they are now. In due time you'll learn that you don't really have time in medical school for intellectual curiosity if you want to do well on exams and learn/memorize all the information thrown at you. PhD's who focus on a specific area may have that luxury. We don't.

Through first and second year, it gets to be more and more like a word association game: Bamboo spine - Ankylosing spondylitis; "Worst headache of my life" - Subarachnoid hemorrhage; Blue sclera - Osteogenesis imperfecta; Nutmeg liver - Right heart failure; etc.

I did have a similar experience as you though. Going into it, I had really high expectations for what my classmates would be like that weren't met. I too wanted to know the why's behind everything and to keep digging deeper and deeper. But now it's basically just knowing the minimum that will get me to the correct answers. It's still interesting stuff that we do learn!

Edit: Just to be clear here in case it isn't to some people, I'm exaggerating. It's not this brainless.
 
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Donald Juan said:
You're the one who went there. Besides, I don't know why you're worried about insulting the bottom 120ers; they're too stupid to understand it anyway.
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I thank God every day that I'm not at a "Top Tier" program.
 
"Medicine required a lot of memorization and little analytical problem solving"--Roderick MacKinnon, MD. 2003 Nobel in Chemistry.

I completed a PhD (from a top 5 medical school) right before med school (at a lower tier) and I am very excited about science, however if you continue with this "curious" attitude, you will struggle in med school. You can get curious about a few things, but it is just not practical to keep up with this kind of philosophy during medical school. There is a vast amount of information to memorize. If you are that bored, try to attend some research seminars in your downtime.
 
Cyal said:
"Medicine required a lot of memorization and little analytical problem solving"--Roderick MacKinnon, MD. 2003 Nobel in Chemistry.

I completed a PhD (from a top 5 medical school) right before med school (at a lower tier) and I am very excited about science, however if you continue with this "curious" attitude, you will struggle in med school. You can get curious about a few things, but it is just not practical to keep up with this kind of philosophy during medical school. There is a vast amount of information to memorize. If you are that bored, try to attend some research seminars in your downtime.
Click to expand...

yea, I'm in the same boat pretty much. I dropped out of a great PhD program in order to attend medical school. Med students don't have the time nor the energy to be curious about every little detail because we are expected to know 5-10 times as much as a graduate student in the same time period. A graduate student slowly becomes an expert in his/her area. A medical student becomes proficient in a hundred fields simultaneously.
 
Btw, I think it's "nonintellectual."
 
notbobtrustme said:
yea, I'm in the same boat pretty much. I dropped out of a great PhD program in order to attend medical school. Med students don't have the time nor the energy to be curious about every little detail because we are expected to know 5-10 times as much as a graduate student in the same time period. A graduate student slowly becomes an expert in his/her area. A medical student becomes proficient in a hundred fields simultaneously.
Click to expand...

There is some truth in what you say but I disagree on some points. We sometimes took a few classes with first-year medical students. In my grad program most required courses (90%) were cramped into first year, in addition to research rotations. Overall, I would say year 1 of med school (I'm an M2 now) easily required memorizing 3-4X the amount of info required for first year of grad school per unit time.

While the volume is definitely more in medical school, the material is relatively simple. In grad school, on the other hand, some courses were quite technical; so instead of requiring more time memorizing details, we spent hours trying to understand and solve problems. A few exams were open book and still the average would be 60%.

I also wouldn't say "A medical student becomes proficient in a hundred fields simultaneously." I think a working knowledge is more appropriate. There is no way any person in my class can, by virtue of receiving a few lectures, walk into my thesis lab, design my experiments and carry them out. Absolutely no way. I have a working knowledge of Down syndrome, but I wouldn't consider myself proficient in the field of Down syndrome research.We just have too much to cram into our heads to be even half-experts in anything.
 
To the OP - what the heck did you expect? You're in a training program for glorified auto mechanics.

You want intellectually curious scientists? Wrong field.

Sorry to be so generalizing, but with few exceptions the pre-meds I went to undergrad with were the least interesting people of my classmates (school ranked #2 on the Forbes list - you can find it if you look it up) - they were smart, driven, and hard working. But practical. I mention elite school to point out that everybody at that undergrad program was intelligent. But intelligence does not equal intellectual. It often equals boring sell-out.

Now in my 30's if I want to have an interesting dinner party there is only one M.D. I would invite - and I have a lot of M.D. friends.

But they were not intellectuals. The intellectuals were going into research, or to grad school, or into political activism, etc.

It's the same in econ. The smart driven sell-outs go to Wall Street. The intellectually curious go get phd's in economics.

I am going into medicine as a second career to go do work in developing countries - the joy of helping others. But I have no delusions that this is intellectually deep work.

BTW I was philosophy undergrad so I hear where you're coming from. I'd find pure science or humanities work much more intellectually challenging and interesting, but at this stage of life I'm more interested in concrete results. I can read Proust, Hume, Brecht and listen to Tchaikovsky on my own time. And my social circle is filled with intellectuals - I don't need to find more of them to hang with in med school.

Hey, at least you'll always have the ability to earn a solid living, which is more than you can say for armies of post-doc scientists who can't find decent employment.
 
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Did you think that it was just a coincidence that there were so many "how much will I make my first year out" threads versus "when will there be a cure for cancer" threads? Medicine and dentistry attract many more students interested in pecuniary reward and lifestyle as opposed to academia, which fosters more "profound thinkers," so to speak.
 
yeah, I've found the same thing. I wouldn't say it's practically everyone, but think about it. You really don't need to be exceptionally intelligent or much of an intellectual to get into med school. Most of the pre-req work (save orgo and physics, which is why so many premeds hate them) is mostly just memorization, so it's largely about just studying a lot. Beyond that, just be decent at taking the MCAT - which, while probably requiring a little more critical thinking skill, still doesn't take a ton, especially when you just need like a 30. Then most of the typical extracurricular stuff and convincing and interviewer you have a compelling reason for wanting to be a doctor aren't really intellectual endeavors. Med school requires a lot to get into - and does require a certain amount of intelligence or sure - but being over an particularly high intellectual is not one of them.

When I saw my school had a CAM group, i put my name down on the list just to see what was going on there. Herbal supplements, different dietary, yeah that's reasonable, but I was floored when I saw multiple people expressing interest in homeopathy - something which anyone who's taken highschool-level chem and physics should be able to understand why it's complete nonsense. That's life for ya. Don't be discouraged because of it; if people left medicine because they thought other people in the field were unintellectual, then things would just get worse at an increasing rate.

edit: And I agree with what anastomoses said regarding the top 10-20 program bit
 
I think part of this Is due to the fact medical school has a much different purpose than undergrad, in undergrad your supposed to be learning how to think,
In med school your learning how to take care of sick people. Your patients could care less if you know how clotting actually works (think that smug PhD who loves to tell you the clotting cascade isn't actually real,etc.) your patient is going to care if you can manage their warfarin.
 
Etorphine said:
What did you expect at the "top-20" medical schools, people name dropping pseudo-intellectual terms like Schrodinger's cat in everyday casual conversation (looking at you, Big Bang Theory) :laugh:

Or, perhaps, your classmates are smart enough to know how much of a tool you'd sound like.
Click to expand...

He would only sound like a tool to someone whose ashamed of too much intelligence.
 
Frank22 said:
Did you think that it was just a coincidence that there were so many "how much will I make my first year out" threads versus "when will there be a cure for cancer" threads? Medicine and dentistry attract many more students interested in pecuniary reward and lifestyle as opposed to academia, which fosters more "profound thinkers," so to speak.
Click to expand...

It wasn't always like this though--there was a paradigm shift that began in the 80s when Baby Boomers took over power in developed countries and injected their liberal filth and backwards thinking into every aspect of life---there's a lot of folks who would otherwise go into med school but don't want to deal with doing phony research, extracurricular activities, and cooing the fragile egos of those in power. The medical profession/medical school used to be much more individualistic and intellectual but has now been reduced to little more than a herd mentality and just another example of generational theft.
 
If med school was all intellectual type like you I would most certainly drop out lol
 
qldman said:
It wasn't always like this though--there was a paradigm shift that began in the 80s when Baby Boomers took over power in developed countries and injected their liberal filth and backwards thinking into every aspect of life---there's a lot of folks who would otherwise go into med school but don't want to deal with doing phony research, extracurricular activities, and cooing the fragile egos of those in power. The medical profession/medical school used to be much more individualistic and intellectual but has now been reduced to little more than a herd mentality and just another example of generational theft.
Click to expand...

For real man, does even this have to be political. I swear people like you are the ones who sit around all day watching opinion news channels, and think about politics all day. Go watch ESPN and relax.
 
TexasDoc2388 said:
For real man, does even this have to be political. I swear people like you are the ones who sit around all day watching opinion news channels, and think about politics all day. Go watch ESPN and relax.
Click to expand...

It's true though---do you think back in the 70s when Boomers were being educated they had to go through rounds of interviews to test their capacity for 'empathy' and 'demonstrate' their dedication to the medical field through BS research and volunteer activities? All this bull**** only started recently due to the paradigm shift...it's like all the causes for supporting women in medicine despite the fact the medical profession and medical school is now majority female...

Medicine was once a very intellectual profession and most great writers, thinkers, and intellectuals up until about 40 years ago or so were doctors...meanwhile the profession has lost nearly all its sanctity and purity due to the decisions of a single generation.

If you check out my handle you'd see I am not American so I don't watch your shows
 
Honestly, I don't think medicine necessarily attracts the intellectual type, because it is ultimately more of a technical job than an intellectual job.
 
Cyal said:
There is some truth in what you say but I disagree on some points. We sometimes took a few classes with first-year medical students. In my grad program most required courses (90%) were cramped into first year, in addition to research rotations. Overall, I would say year 1 of med school (I'm an M2 now) easily required memorizing 3-4X the amount of info required for first year of grad school per unit time.

While the volume is definitely more in medical school, the material is relatively simple. In grad school, on the other hand, some courses were quite technical; so instead of requiring more time memorizing details, we spent hours trying to understand and solve problems. A few exams were open book and still the average would be 60%.

I also wouldn't say "A medical student becomes proficient in a hundred fields simultaneously." I think a working knowledge is more appropriate. There is no way any person in my class can, by virtue of receiving a few lectures, walk into my thesis lab, design my experiments and carry them out. Absolutely no way. I have a working knowledge of Down syndrome, but I wouldn't consider myself proficient in the field of Down syndrome research.We just have too much to cram into our heads to be even half-experts in anything.
Click to expand...

QFT.

As an example: in grad school for pharmacology we spent entire lectures on 1 drug with the goal of understanding exactly how and why it worked (and also why it doesn't in some people). Chemical structure, intracellular signaling pathways, gene polymorphisms, drug interactions, resistance, etc... In med school, drugs are often just 2-3 ppt slides in a lecture on a whole class of drugs.

Unfortunately, med school is by nature superficial learning. There just isn't enough time for in-depth understanding and "intellectual curiosity" when it comes to basic sciences. If you want more intellectual style learning you'll need to do either an MD/MS or MD/PhD.
 
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