Use of chemistry in med school

[fonzy]

Once you are in med school, how much chemistry [general +organic etc.] do you really need to go through MD curriculum? Can you do with very little prior knowledge of chemistry?

thanks

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[hypersting]

Once you are in med school, how much chemistry [general +organic etc.] do you really need to go through MD curriculum? Can you do with very little prior knowledge of chemistry?

thanks

Think of it as building blocks, can you do calculus without knowing basic arithmetic? For instance, understanding acid base chemistry forms the foundation to understand many bodily interactions. You may only need 10% of what you learn, but you need to remember those key overarching concepts. All you need for medical school is the prerequisites, that's why they are prereqs.

 

[Neuronix]

Once you are in med school, how much chemistry [general +organic etc.] do you really need to go through MD curriculum?

None. Anyone who says otherwise either loves chemistry/physical science or is trying to justify to themselves why they went through all that pain in undergrad.

 

[Ramoray]

Neuronix you are a fool, speak for yourself. I had a ton of chem needed for biochem and physio. Physio is surprisingly also a ton of physics. Without a good understanding of physics, most of physio makes little sense. Chemistry also is huge in physio, renal phys, cardio phys, resp phys. Pharmacology is a huge chem portion to understand pharm. Everything if you want to UNDERSTAND medicine takes alot of chem and physics. If you want to get by and not understand alot then you dont need a ton of it. neuronix again waht a dumb comment

 

[drlexygoat]

Out of all the chem classes I took in undergrad, I find Biochem coming up most commonly now. I know each school is different, but I'm haunted every day by sugar molecules, TCA cycles, etc....

 

[leviathan]

Neuronix you are a fool, speak for yourself. I had a ton of chem needed for biochem and physio. Physio is surprisingly also a ton of physics. Without a good understanding of physics, most of physio makes little sense. Chemistry also is huge in physio, renal phys, cardio phys, resp phys. Pharmacology is a huge chem portion to understand pharm. Everything if you want to UNDERSTAND medicine takes alot of chem and physics. If you want to get by and not understand alot then you dont need a ton of it. neuronix again waht a dumb comment

There is only a little bit of physics in physiology. Really, the physical aspect of physiology is explained perfectly fine during the lectures. I can think of a few physical concepts you need to know like Starling's Law, Laminar and turbulent bloodflow, partial pressures, gradients, etc. For chem, you also don't really need it because you can easily learn it in class. Again, examples include acid-base regulation, various chemical reactions (bicarb-co2), etc. Perhaps medicine is different, but I can at least make a comment about physiology.

Of course if you really want a deeper understanding, I suppose chem and physics are necessary, which is why they are pre-reqs. 👍

 

[Neuronix]

Neuronix you are a fool, speak for yourself.

lol, indeed. You can easily memorize your way through pharm, phys, and every other subject in medical school without understanding the concepts they're based on. If you disagree, well, speak for yourself.

 

[Ramoray]

lol, indeed. You can easily memorize your way through pharm, phys, and every other subject in medical school without understanding the concepts they're based on. If you disagree, well, speak for yourself.

ya youll make a great doctor, memorizing your way through-thats something to be really proud about! i hope you stick to bench research or your patients will be screwed. Doctors like you and classmates piss me off, learn to THINK and apply information, not just memorize.. typical med student

 

[mattorama]

Umm...I'm going to have to back Neuronix up here...

While I can't say anything about pharm (as I am a first year), I can say there is very little at ALL to "understand" in med school so far. I had a lot of physiology in undergrad, and looking through our notes for the year, a high school level of physics and chemistry is all that is really needed.

My undergrad background is in biology and engineering. Biology is an experimental science...not a whole lot of deductive reasoning involved at all (you don't just learn fundamental principles of things and extrapolate on them...). Engineering was all about problem solving, thinking, and applying (and heck, a good friend of mine who is working on his PhD in math thinks engineering is "low level" thinking) and biology/medicine is not. That being said, I think biology/medicine is way more interesting then engineering.

 

[skiz knot]

There is only a little bit of physics in physiology. Really, the physical aspect of physiology is explained perfectly fine during the lectures. I can think of a few physical concepts you need to know like Starling's Law, Laminar and turbulent bloodflow, partial pressures, gradients, etc. For chem, you also don't really need it because you can easily learn it in class. Again, examples include acid-base regulation, various chemical reactions (bicarb-co2), etc. Perhaps medicine is different, but I can at least make a comment about physiology.

Of course if you really want a deeper understanding, I suppose chem and physics are necessary, which is why they are pre-reqs. 👍

As for the chem needed in med school, the reason you can "easily learn it in class" is because it is review from something you have learned before.

To the OP, you will have to have a grasp of basic chemical, physical, biological processes to get through your med school classes. If you do well in your pre reqs you will (probably) do fine in medical school. Nothing is conceptually all that challenging, there is just a lot of info to absorb.

 

[Neuronix]

ya youll make a great doctor, memorizing your way through-thats something to be really proud about!

I didn't say I did it. I'm a MD/PhD in Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics. My research is on experimental MRI and I did a whole lot of physical science both in undergrad and still with my graduate school work. My point was simply that it is easily possible to do what I'm proposing.

 

[azzarah]

IMHO general chem and organic plus basic physics help a lot in physiology....especially pulmonary and CV physiology (physics) and renal physiology (general chem). I wouldn't count on becoming a doctor by "memorizing" physiology....
Last year we learned how to derive an EKG wave based on physics...once you get it, you can use it to understand various pathological patterns. Memorizing patterns after you understand them is a lot more enjoyable.

 

[leviathan]

As for the chem needed in med school, the reason you can "easily learn it in class" is because it is review from something you have learned before.

To the OP, you will have to have a grasp of basic chemical, physical, biological processes to get through your med school classes. If you do well in your pre reqs you will (probably) do fine in medical school. Nothing is conceptually all that challenging, there is just a lot of info to absorb.

I'm not in Med school yet, so I can't attest to what you "need" for chem. All I know is my personal expreience with the physiology I have studied. The most I needed to know were simple chemical reactions like the bicarb-co2 one I already mentioned. Even a grade 12 student knows how a reaction works like that, in relation to equilibriums. There definitely is biochem involved for the TCA cycle and glycolysis and all of that, but that is basically just memorization (and not deeper understanding like that ukrainian student was purporting).

As for physics in physiology, there is defintely a requirement to understand the processes that go on. But again, it's not that tricky and you need at most grade 12 physics to do it. That is for understanding simple concepts like electrical transmission in neurons, or things like viscosity in liquids, the quality of bloodflow, etc. The physical aspect was even taught to us in class, and it isn't that hard to comprehend if you have never studied physics.

Anyhow, I'm not saying you're wrong...I'm just saying what I have experienced personally...Can you provide me with an example where you need to know more complex theoretical chemistry, organic chemistry, or physics to understand a medical concept? That is, something which couldn't just be explained in class.

 

[leviathan]

IMHO general chem and organic plus basic physics help a lot in physiology....especially pulmonary and CV physiology (physics) and renal physiology (general chem). I wouldn't count on becoming a doctor by "memorizing" physiology....
Last year we learned how to derive an EKG wave based on physics...once you get it, you can use it to understand various pathological patterns. Memorizing patterns after you understand them is a lot more enjoyable.

Ah, touch?. A deep understanding of EKGs defintely involves a lot of physics which is not easily explained in the class itself. An interesting point, many schools including my own home university (UBC) do not even require physics as a pre-requisite. Personally, I believe they should, for both the MCAT and also to have a solid science background.

 

[SaltySqueegee]

I think the main point is that it is easier if you have been taught/introduced to some fundemental's of chemistry and biochem/molecular biology before starting medical school. Direct observation has shown that those people with little biochem exp are struggling with the basic concepts of protein primary structure, while everyone else is moving on to memorizing all the other crap that needs to be stuffed into the cabasa.

The idea of undergrad, is to act as the lube before you get stuck with the 'Big-One.' Do you want to get stuck with no lube? 😉

... [looks both ways]... and yeah! ... Neuronix you are a fool!!! ...[ducks and runs out of sight] 😉

 

[fielight]

what SaltySqueegee noted is very true... i think it's entirely possible to just memorize everything once you get to medical school (the professors explain the material, so you can always learn it then), but you'll be that much better off if you've taken the courses. as an undergrad, i minored in chem, so i had to take inorganic, organic, quantitative analysis, and biochem. in quant, we had to do so much acid/base, reduction potential stuff... and even though i saw some of this in medical biochemistry, it was never as in depth (what i learned in quant probably only showed up in 2 lectures of medical biochem). but then again, that's 2 lectures that will let you breathe a little easier; when you get so much material in med school, you'll happy with any kind of a break. besides, the point of taking challenging classes in undergrad is to get used to the amount of work. it amazes me that art majors and music majors want to go into medical school with the minimal pre-reqs; as a violinist, i knew a lot of music majors and their course load... these people usually find the 1st year of med school really tough because they've never had exposure to the kind of material. honestly, the best thing you can do as a pre-med is to take a lot of tough bio/chem courses (and take them together)... you'll be glad once you're in med school.

 

[euromd]

it amazes me that art majors and music majors want to go into medical school with the minimal pre-reqs; as a violinist, i knew a lot of music majors and their course load... these people usually find the 1st year of med school really tough because they've never had exposure to the kind of material. honestly, the best thing you can do as a pre-med is to take a lot of tough bio/chem courses (and take them together)... you'll be glad once you're in med school.

I wouldn't judge music majors so quickly. Practicing an instrument for 5-6 hours a day plus all other homework is no cakewalk. It is different than taking an all-science course load. 😉

As well, I'm not sure how much of organic chem 2 and mechanics is incredibly useful, but I wouldn't attempt med school with no science background. It's good to take the classes just to familiarize yourself with the some of the potential material, see if you actually like those types of classes and see if you do well in them.

-S

 

[SaltySqueegee]

Neuronix... just out of question... how can you do experimental MRI research without at least an undergrad degree in physics? I mean, I work with some guys in an EPR lab on my campus (same sort of technology); both of them have PhD's in physics and both of them can still have trouble modifying the spectrometer / interpreting experimental results.

Does your research involve investigating disease using MRI? This would seem to be more of an MD/PhD oriented (aka applied) sort of thing, and one in which I would be rather interested...

Along these same lines, I would like to delve into the realm of Protein NMR. Can anyone recommend a good conceptual introductory book on designing custom pulse sequences??? It's all about multi-dimensional NMR baby!

 

[Gerg]

I read something somewhere sometime about how getting experience viusalizing things (like enatomers) is supposed to help you when you get to anatomy. With spatial reasoning, nothing helps like practice, practice, practice. So keep on keeping on. Med schools would not make things pre-reqs if they didn't think they were necessary.

 

[Neuronix]

how can you do experimental MRI research without at least an undergrad degree in physics? I mean, I work with some guys in an EPR lab on my campus (same sort of technology); both of them have PhD's in physics and both of them can still have trouble modifying the spectrometer / interpreting experimental results.

I know what you mean. This is complicated stuff and it seems like you need a lot of background to fully understand it. Still, when you pick this sort of thing for your graduate work, you take a good amount of coursework (usually more than your more molecular counterparts) to try to appreciate the processes going in in your research. One wonders (and many argue) about how much coursework is really necessary in order to work in MRI, but one could argue that it is only introductory quantum mechanics, electricity and magnatism, and some courses specific to MRI. Of course there will be others who argue that you should have spend your whole life devoted to the hardcore study of physical science, but I think that leads to a certain near-sightedness that we MD/PhDs are hoping to avoid 🙂

Besides, everyone who does this kind of research comes from a certain background, and everyone has some area that they're weak in. Important contributions in imaging come from all areas, including the biologists, the physicists, the mathematicians, etc...

Does your research involve investigating disease using MRI? This would seem to be more of an MD/PhD oriented (aka applied) sort of thing, and one in which I would be rather interested...

The work in which I'm most interested involves using experimental MRI techniques to investigate diseases or physical processes in animal models. I may or may not develop my own pulse sequences. In the lab, some of the projects involve techniques that were developed in house, but most involve ideas that are gained and sometimes modified (usually empirically, not theoretically) to our own applications.

 

[mellow yellow]

Having graduated w/ a masters in organic chem, I guess perhaps I speak with the greatest authority here... 🙄 You really don't need to directly know or remember ANY general or organic chemistry to do well in med school... However, organic chemistry is a very conceptual subject that builds on a couple principles and the thought processes needed to reason through complex synthetic schemes or mechanisms are similar to the challenges you'll face during your clinical years in terms of establishing a differential diagnosis related to the mechanism of disease. Med school is very different from chemistry in that there is so much MORE knowledge that one MUST acquire in order to form a sound foundation of medicine... What that really means is you gotta just learn to suck it up and MEMORIZE vast quantities of information especially during your preclinical and clinical years. Much of learning medicine is about repetition. Just understand physiology and pathophysiology really well and you should be able to figure out why many things present the way they do... Don't worry about chemistry!