Science knowledge needed for med school?

[boynamedsue]

Hi everyone,

 

I am a very non-traditional applicant who's only just beginning to prepare for med school.

 

I already have my BA, but without most of the premed prereqs. Aside from the usual prereqs, how much scientific/anatomical/biological knowledge should someone entering med school have? If all I had were the basic biology and chem/orgo courses, would I be at a distinct disadvantage?

 

It'd be great to hear from anyone who has a sense of what's thrown at med students in the first year. I'm trying to figure out how much preparation and extra coursework I would need before entering med school (i.e., would a basic bio course be enough, or should I also take biochem and/or cell biology, etc etc).

 

Thanks!

[Satsuma]

And MD is an undergraduate degree....so they know that everyone comes in with different backgrouds and usually teach accordingly. This contrasts with a grad degree where you are expected to build on prior knowledge.

 

If you do your prereqs you should be fine. That being said, the more med school related classes you take before you get here (eg anatomy, physiology, pharmacology) the easier your life will be, as you will be reviewing instead of learning from scratch.

 

There are people in my class from so many backgrounds...lawyer, teacher, philopsophy student etc. And they are doing just fine.

 

You asked about cell bio and biochem....these are useful, and they will present these concept in class. However, you will not usually be asked the details of pathways etc in med school. As you progress the focus will be more clinical rather than basic science. So it may help you understand better but not 100% needed to succeed.

[Roxy]

Taking the prereqs would be the minimum I would do before medschool. Additional courses in biochem, pharmacology, anatomy and physiology, genetics, microbiology, cell biology, and psychology would all be helpful but not absolutely necessary. Communication skills are also a huge requirement in medschool, so a course in effective communication (written and oral) would never be wasted if you could fit it in.

[Rock*]

For the most part, all the knowledge you need to know to understand the courses in med school is reviewed quickly before you dive into the details but in many cases profs quickly blast through what they assume are simple basics and a previous familiarity with physics, biology, immunology, and physiology can help immensely. For example, in cardiology and pulmonology, physics are used to explain things like the flow and resistance in the circulatory system, or compliance and pressure differences in the lungs. You can get by if you're learning these concepts for the first time, but the extra learning would make your studying noticeably more time intensive and difficult.

[chaserMD]

I am definitely a non-traditional applicant (I am just finishing up my Ed degree in high school English and elementary music), so I asked my GP what she thought of the required pre-req's for medicine. She told me that she never saw much "pure" chem or physics after she started her MD program, and felt that most of the pre-req work was just a weeding mechanism. What do you think?

[Julie]

I think the science courses (especially biochem, molecular biology, pharmacology & the like) would definitely have been usefull, as we do learn some in med school, and as Rock said, the professors tend to skim through it relatively fast. Most people in my class have taken at least some of these, and so they have more time to focus on the rest of what we have to learn. That said, it's by no means a necessity & I do get by just fine with minimum pre-reqs (1 half-yr course each of orgo, biochem & 1 full-yr course each of basic bio & chem). Are there times when I wish I would have taken more? Sure. Am I going to flunk out because I didn't? Of course not.