When do doctors forget their premedical knowledge?

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deanthedream17

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It seems like all the doctors that I have spoken to both related to me and not don't remember anything about the 4 years of education they obtained in undergrad. Unless its directly related to physiology or disease they are clueless to any organic chemistry (even basic structures let alone rxns), chemical principles, genetics etc. This has made me wonder when do doctors forget this knowledge because many of them have gone to wonderful schools so obviously knew it very well at one point. Is it when your in medical school and your barraged with so much information or after?
 
It seems like all the doctors that I have spoken to both related to me and not don't remember anything about the 4 years of education they obtained in undergrad. Unless its directly related to physiology or disease they are clueless to any organic chemistry (even basic structures let alone rxns), chemical principles, genetics etc. This has made me wonder when do doctors forget this knowledge because many of them have gone to wonderful schools so obviously knew it very well at one point. Is it when your in medical school and your barraged with so much information or after?

Agree with above poster... we don't use that stuff very often so it slowly slips away.

I've probably retained a fairly significant amount of the biology I learned in undergrad, but other than that I don't really remember much.

With that said I don't think it'd take me half as long to go back and learn all of it again as it did the first time... but who in their right mind would want to do that? haha
 
use it or lose it

Right on.

You definitely start losing it in medical school because a lot of it is irrelevant and you no longer need/use it. Think about it...you could get a degree in English and still go to med school (I know there are prerequisites for med school, but they are very minimal in my opinion).
 
I'm a MS3 and I've forgotten almost everything regarding my undergrad degree in biology that didn't translate to medical school. Therefore, things like ecology, evolution, are so far outside of my mind. Classes like cell bio, molecular bio, physiology, and developmental bio were ones that applied at least partially to medical school.
 
I would guess you'd rememeber anything that's related or anything that interested you a lot... and probably some very basic stuff.
 
I've already forgotten it and I'm not even in medical school yet. But does it even matter?

The purpose of undergrad is to teach you how to think, not what to think. That's why medical schools don't care if you major in Bioengineering or if you major in Philosophy. And I mean seriously, if I ever encounter a patient that wants me to diagram a base-catalyzed aldol condensation, I will *** on my **** and eat it.

So really, who cares what you learn in your science classes.
 
I've already forgotten it and I'm not even in medical school yet. But does it even matter?

The purpose of undergrad is to teach you how to think, not what to think. That's why medical schools don't care if you major in Bioengineering or if you major in Philosophy. And I mean seriously, if I ever encounter a patient that wants me to diagram a base-catalyzed aldol condensation, I will *** on my **** and eat it.

So really, who cares what you learn in your science classes.

*ding ding ding* we have a winner.
 
Technically you never lose a memory...they have been shown to be pretty permanent.

Even if you can't 'remember' specifics of pre-medical stuff you still have a general idea of principles. Granted you never need to know the structure of any molecule or mechanism for medicine. It's a good background which teaches you to think better.
 
It seems like all the doctors that I have spoken to both related to me and not don't remember anything about the 4 years of education they obtained in undergrad. Unless its directly related to physiology or disease they are clueless to any organic chemistry (even basic structures let alone rxns), chemical principles, genetics etc. This has made me wonder when do doctors forget this knowledge because many of them have gone to wonderful schools so obviously knew it very well at one point. Is it when your in medical school and your barraged with so much information or after?

Pre reqs are only useful to gauge if you are smart enough to learn actual practical medicine once/if you get to med school. Wolff Kishner reduction?????
 
Technically you never lose a memory...they have been shown to be pretty permanent.

Even if you can't 'remember' specifics of pre-medical stuff you still have a general idea of principles. Granted you never need to know the structure of any molecule or mechanism for medicine. It's a good background which teaches you to think better.

True but you lose those linkages to those memories if not used constantly (waste of energy to have them). They can be regained but it takes time.
 
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It's far easier to forget data from memorization-based subjects. My resident friends have already forgotten a lot from the 1st two years of medical school, especially first year. I don't think anyone of them remembers much about the pterygopalatine fossa which I'm memorizing now. It's much easier to retain info from principle-based subjects such as chemistry, physics and mathematics. I still remember a fair amount of organic chemistry: Markovnikov regiochemistry, Diels-Alder, Grignard reagents/reaction for R substitutions, resonance theory, some principles applying to reactions of the functional groups, carbocations, ozonolysis, ring strain and reactivity, free energy from physical chem, force fields, newtonian mechanics, pressure/bernoulli, waves, heat, kinetic theory, etc. I don't remember how to solve a second-order ODE by hand, but I still remember the principles. I may not know how solve problems involving constraint-based max and mins using Lagrange multipliers but the general principle remains with me.

Usually if you don't use some data you'll forget them. I remember repeatedly memorizing amino acids and their side chains in college because I was forgetting. However my PhD thesis required extensive cloning, mutational analysis and biophysics such that the structures of amino acids just stayed with me. I can still easily draw nearly all of them now. I also knew most of the genetic code at one point due to carrying out lots of site-directed mutagenesis/cloning. I still remember a few, but I'm already forgetting.
 
Disagree this thread is muc more relevant to medical students and beyond. How are premeds going to answer this question when they haven't forgotten the knowledge yet?

You underestimate our ability to forget things
 
This. As a pediatrician, Biochem, physiology, genetics, embryology, endocrinology have all stayed with me since undergrad. Neuroanatomy, which is also relevant, not so much.

Yes, it's the same for me with my pilots' license. I have not flown recently but I can still remember all the technical stuff to get the plane off the ground. But the amount of information I have forgotten is enormous. If I wanted to go flying today, I would have to relearn facts about the aircraft, what's the ceiling for this model, what is the weight limit, what are the radio frequencies at the airports I will be using.

A pilot who flys everyday could easily rattle off all that information but I would have to look it up.
 
Disagree this thread is muc more relevant to medical students and beyond. How are premeds going to answer this question when they haven't forgotten the knowledge yet?
Because physicians and med students browse this forum too, but the topic is geared toward a pre-med's interest, so it belongs here.
 
Because physicians and med students browse this forum too, but the topic is geared toward a pre-med's interest, so it belongs here.

+1

you forget it pretty much immediately after you receive an acceptable MCAT score

Yep, I've already forgotten half the stuff I learned for the MCAT and I took it less than 6 months ago. All that lens stuff? Primary follicle progesterone estradiol stuff? Fuzzy, soon to be gone until I have to learn it again. It's sad how quickly stuff leaves, especially when you know you'll have to learn it again.
 
Agree with all the above. If you don't use it, it slips away pretty fast.


That being said, I do possess the foundation to go back and read some basic science topic and understand what's going on and what specifically I need to follow up on to understand it better.
 
Agree with all the above. If you don't use it, it slips away pretty fast.


That being said, I do possess the foundation to go back and read some basic science topic and understand what's going on and what specifically I need to follow up on to understand it better.

Exactly, the conceptual understanding is still there but the minute details are forgotten.
 
Right after the MCAT for most things. A few bits and pieces of General Physics came back in Physiology though.

As for Organic Chemistry, Breaking Bad keeps thag stuff fresh.

Lol @ Breaking Bad
 
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