Dislike Science but want to be a Doctor

[Nowa]

Hello eveyone,

So my little sister is in her second year at the U of A taking a B.A. and the required science courses for med. She wants to be a doctor but recently came to me because she has doubts. She hates chem, math, physics and is neutral about bio. She was wondering if she would hate being a doctor/ med school if she dislikes her science courses so much. I was unsure what to tell her as I have always liked science.

So I was hoping for some imput from this community.

Is anyone out there having the same troubles because they want to be a doctor but are not fond of science courses, specifically labs?

Should I tell her to look into other fields becasue medicine is based on science?

 

I asked why she wanted to be a doctor and she said that she enjoyed helping people, wanted a stable job, enjoyed learning, and has always had good marks hence she feels that if she does not go on to futher education she is wasting her potential.

For what its worth I think she would make a excellent doctor she has this amazing ability to make people confortable when they are upset/stressed/anxious and has great people skills. Her back up plan was to become a highschool teacher but she does not feel like that would offer enough of a academic challenge. I then suggested law school instead but she does not feel like she has any interest in being a lawyer.

So any insights from people would be a help as I am struggling to give her an answer as I don't know if its possible to dislike science and still enjoy medicine.

[Mashmetoo]

errrm.. Medicine is all about science.. If she has trouble liking basically all the prerequisite science courses, and is only "neutral" about biology.. then honestly, imo, medicine isn't for her. In fact, she should think long and hard before heading into any science based career. In medicine especially, it's all about LIFE LONG LEARNING (of sciences!). If at this stage of the game, she doesn't like all the prereq science courses, my main concern is if she'll even have the drive to excel in those courses academically (you don't have to like them, but you still need to get high marks in those courses in order to even have a shot at med school). As for people skills, there's lots of other professions out there that require good people skills more than medicine. A love of the sciences is essential for a medical career.. Or she'll hate every minute of it if she did somehow end up in med school.

 

Hello eveyone,

So my little sister is in her second year at the U of A taking a B.A. and the required science courses for med. She wants to be a doctor but recently came to me because she has doubts. She hates chem, math, physics and is neutral about bio. She was wondering if she would hate being a doctor/ med school if she dislikes her science courses so much. I was unsure what to tell her as I have always liked science.

So I was hoping for some imput from this community.

Is anyone out there having the same troubles because they want to be a doctor but are not fond of science courses, specifically labs?

Should I tell her to look into other fields becasue medicine is based on science?

 

I asked why she wanted to be a doctor and she said that she enjoyed helping people, wanted a stable job, enjoyed learning, and has always had good marks hence she feels that if she does not go on to futher education she is wasting her potential.

For what its worth I think she would make a excellent doctor she has this amazing ability to make people confortable when they are upset/stressed/anxious and has great people skills. Her back up plan was to become a highschool teacher but she does not feel like that would offer enough of a academic challenge. I then suggested law school instead but she does not feel like she has any interest in being a lawyer.

So any insights from people would be a help as I am struggling to give her an answer as I don't know if its possible to dislike science and still enjoy medicine.

[Apixaban85]

I agree with the above posters, you definitely need some sort of interest in these sciences to succeed in medicine. Not only do they lay the groundwork about what you're going to be learning in the future, but they also give you a challenge in critical thinking and problem solving (especially math and physics) which are priceless for a physician.

 

As for the reasons she gave you, as someone mentioned above as well a Masters + PhD program can be a great learning experience and can ultimately lead to a stable job (tenured professor at a university) if you're committed to that goal. But I guess it does have a lower degree of helping others than a physician.

 

On the other hand, Mt. Sinai Med School in New York does have a program that caters to humanities students who 'dislike' the sciences that you may want to check out

 

http://www.mssm.edu/education/medical-education/programs/humanities-and-medicine-early-acceptance-program

[MedDream]

Although I'm not in med school, I don't think you have to enjoy those "core sciences" to be a good doctor (and enjoy medicine). She should check out some ECs that are related to the medical field. St. John Ambulance has a great volunteer program- the medical first responders. I'm on a team for my campus and basically you are trained to respond to medical emergencies until paramedics can arrive. For me, it was something that confirmed my interest in the medical field. I'm only in second year, and I really didn't like my first year science courses... the seemed super irrelevant and boring... etcetc. But this year with some courses like genetics thrown in I think she should be able to see if medicine will interest her down the road. You sort of have to keep the big picture in mind.

[mattg]

i'm sure there's tons of med students/doctors that hate chemistry, physics, math, and certain aspects of bio... if she is in second year, it's likely that the bio courses she have been exposed to are cell biology, evolution, ecology, genetics, which a lot of people find boring... you should encourage her to take some classes like physiology, or anatomy, or things like that... those are more reflective of med school classes (although of course cell bio, genetics, pharm, etc. it also important)... but if she has zero interest in any aspect of biology/physiology, or any other sciences, it's pretty unlikely she'll enjoy medicine... of course some doctors focus more so on health policy, ethics, etc. which don't aren't based on science... but if you hate all aspects of science, it's pretty likely that you will hate your life throughout med school and residency, at least

[Lactic Folly]

I think what is missing here is - why does she hate her science courses?

[tooty]

you said she "enjoyed learning" what does she enjoy learning about if not science? doesn't seem like she's going to enjoy a career in medicine. you're essentially committing to a career of learning about science. it's not like the learning stops after residency.

[Nowa]

hey guys the advice is really great...I read what you wrote and had another talk with my sister. It's nice that we live together so I can bug her when ever I want. After further discussion she revealed that she was decided on medicine in highschool when Bio 30 exposed her to mendelian gentetics and reproduction. THe reason that she said she was neutral on bio in university is because she had only taken cell bio and some botany classes which seem very disconnected to the actual human body. This disconnect is again why the other sciences are not appealing. It is very difficult for her to make the practical connection. The one thing about my sister is she is extremely practical ...hates theory and loves real world application. Hence I took your suggestions and told her to switch a couple of her winter classes to ones that focus more on the human body which is practical learning. She has done some volunteer work at a mental health center and really enjoyed working with patients. She mostly played board games with people on the brain injury unit and helped out with geratric patients suffering from alltimers. Her exact words to me when I asked what she liked about the medical field was "people have problems that they are unsure how to deal with because they lack medical knowledge they come to you and you have the training to help them most of the time or you know who to refer them to. Its a solution based job..People are sick/hurt and its your job to fix the problem" As for the learning question when I asked her what she like to learn if she disliked the sciences she told me that "even when I am bord out of my mind in lab class i still am glad that i'm in a university lab over working in a repetetive job. I come home and feel exited because my knowledge and skill set is always growing even if at points what i'm learning is not that interesting. As for subject matter I love my history of medicine class and all my psychology classes."

[astrogirl]

Well, there's a difference between disliking science and disliking first year science courses. But if she's pretty sure she doesn't like science at all, then there are lots of careers that require plenty of continual learning and are focused on helping people. Maybe she would be interested in becoming a counselor.

[Lactic Folly]

Well, that sounds more promising. Studying and practising medicine is not like studying undergraduate science, though one will need to be conversant in the basic science concepts which those prerequisite courses provide.

 

Delayed gratification is definitely part of medical training.. not everything will be interesting in the beginning, but one needs to be self-motivated to learn the material well anyway. It sounds like your sister would probably enjoy the more "doing" fields.. something like ob/gyn perhaps.

[Jochi1543]

I agree with the person who suggested taking courses that are more closely related to medicine, e.g. physiology. I can't say I hated science in undergrad, but I just didn't find it that interesting as humanities, e.g. history or foreign language. I still could care less about cytokines and interleukins to be honest. So much about undergrad science is about rote memorization. I just had a discussion with a few classmates about how irrelevant most of our basic sciences pre-reqs have been so far - you basically don't need any physics, and chemistry is minimal (think acid-base balance). So I think there's definitely room in med school for people who are not very science-minded. It's not like you'll be modeling protein structures as a family doc. We've barely done any basic science to date, our education is very clinical-minded - and we're 75% through our pre-clinical years already. As long as your sister has adequate intelligence and work ethic to do well in these undergrad science courses even if she doesn't find them stimulating, she will probably do great in med school.