Med school concentration

[OttawaURookie]

In terms of courses that you have to take...if we were to split it into biology, biochemistry, chemistry, calculus, physics, etc what subject do you deal with the most? I'm just curious as I was never really a science/math student and while I was strong in some science courses others I was pretty bad.

[rmorelan]

In terms of courses that you have to take...if we were to split it into biology, biochemistry, chemistry, calculus, physics, etc what subject do you deal with the most? I'm just curious as I was never really a science/math student and while I was strong in some science courses others I was pretty bad.

 

Do you mean at actual med school?

 

If so at Western (which covers pretty much the same material as everywhere else I would think) maybe in the first 2 years we would have one or two hours of physics total , no calculus at all, - chemistry and biochemistry kind of blur but we cover vitamin structure, some metabolism, and some concepts related to drugs - ahhh maybe 10-20 hours? That might even be pushing it. That leaves biology although it is probably better to call it human physiology, human anatomy etc which would make up the bulk of the time.

 

Hehehe it probably sounds a bit silly but we study medicine at medical school - there isn't same structure as before. Obviously it is way more clinical

 

Now this is just at the preclerkship level I am talking about so far

[OttawaURookie]

Yeah I mean in med school.

 

I guess that makes sense that it would be clinical. For some reason I had the odd idea that you would almost be re-doing just your usual biology course and biochemistry in your first year or something. That it wouldn't be much different then Uni..seeing as not all students come from a science background.

[rmorelan]

Yeah I mean in med school.

 

I guess that makes sense that it would be clinical. For some reason I had the odd idea that you would almost be re-doing just your usual biology course and biochemistry in your first year or something. That it wouldn't be much different then Uni..seeing as not all students come from a science background.

 

Nope. You stop doing all that unrelated stuff. That is way someone's UG is not really all that relevant to things and why schools don't insist on particular fields before admission - I mean you can study all the biochem, physics, chemistry etc you want but really that isn't a big thing in medical school unless it has something to do with your particular interest in a specialty etc. Bluntly drugs either work or they don't in certain situations - I certainly won't redesign one with all my organic chem knowledge on the fly. A persons metabolism pathway works or it doesn't - I cannot fix it (yet). So if you want to be a rad onc physics is important, if you want to be drug researcher biochem is important, if you want .... and so on If later something becomes important we simply learn it completely then and just have a foundation to start with.

 

I still study tons of things that are interesting to me but probably only remotely interesting clincially. But I guess you really don't have to as much as you might think if your doing an UG right now.

 

I will say that knowing how to write is probably more important than organic chem, physics, calculus and a lot of other things people think is important. At least I have to actually write papers, grants, projects etc

[Robin Hood]

Nope. You stop doing all that unrelated stuff. That is way someone's UG is not really all that relevant to things and why schools don't insist on particular fields before admission - I mean you can study all the biochem, physics, chemistry etc you want but really that isn't a big thing in medical school unless it has something to do with your particular interest in a specialty etc. Bluntly drugs either work or they don't in certain situations - I certainly won't redesign one with all my organic chem knowledge on the fly. A persons metabolism pathway works or it doesn't - I cannot fix it (yet). So if you want to be a rad onc physics is important, if you want to be drug researcher biochem is important, if you want .... and so on If later something becomes important we simply learn it completely then and just have a foundation to start with.

 

I still study tons of things that are interesting to me but probably only remotely interesting clincially. But I guess you really don't have to as much as you might think if your doing an UG right now.

 

I will say that knowing how to write is probably more important than organic chem, physics, calculus and a lot of other things people think is important. At least I have to actually write papers, grants, projects etc

 

So you focus more on pathologies and you don't focus a lot on what causes them?

[NLengr]

So you focus more on pathologies and you don't focus a lot on what causes them?

 

Pathology is the study of what causes them. It's the study of the disease process.

 

He means you might learn how troponin goes up in an MI and you can use that to help you diagnose. You don't learn about the chemical structure of the molecule. Or you might learn about how plaques rupture to cause the event and how LDL influences those events, but you aren't drawing out the molecular structure of LDL.

 

Or you might learn how a gene makes someone more prone to a cardiac arrhythmia, but you aren't sequencing the thing.

 

You focus on things that are relavent to healing the patient.

[thebouque]

So you focus more on pathologies and you don't focus a lot on what causes them?

 

99% of the time you don't need calculus, physics nor in depth biochem to study diseases. Grab ''robbin's pathologic basis of diseases'', the standard book that covers ''what causes pathology'' (pathophysiology) and you won't find any calculus/chem and VERY VERY little biochem.

[dy727]

calculus --> no need at all during med school, but it may become useful when you move onto residencies heavy on physiology (e.g. respirology), but still i doubt they use calculus on a daily basis.

 

org chem --> 0 use, unless you go into medical pharmaceuticals

 

biochem --> probably the most useful, molecular biochemistry (DNA, protein etc), metabolic biochemistry (lipid, sugar, etc), signal transmission (Receptor)

 

physics --> impt for cardio (fluids), neuro(electricity), resp(gases pressure volume), radiology (waves), rad onc (again waves and radiation)

 

chemistry --> resp (gas exchange?), acids and bases etc

 

 

pretty much, biol, chem, phys, biochem give a basis of understanding that will be important in med school studies.

 

I found what's more important is really the health science courses you may get exposure to in bigger universities

e.g. immunology, microbiology, human physiology, pathology, pharmacology, statistics, psychology

 

had i known this, i would've done specialization in ugrad that gives exposure to all of these areas and not specialize too much.

[NLengr]

Stats is super important come residency. It's key to understanding and evaluating evidence as well as doing research (which all residents have to do). You will be expected to know stats in order to answer questions on the royal college exam.

[rmorelan]

Pathology is the study of what causes them. It's the study of the disease process.

 

He means you might learn how troponin goes up in an MI and you can use that to help you diagnose. You don't learn about the chemical structure of the molecule. Or you might learn about how plaques rupture to cause the event and how LDL influences those events, but you aren't drawing out the molecular structure of LDL.

 

Or you might learn how a gene makes someone more prone to a cardiac arrhythmia, but you aren't sequencing the thing.

 

You focus on things that are relavent to healing the patient.

 

yeah exactly It is important to realize the difference between a medical researcher and medical doctor in the end

[Larrivee]

I was surprised by some of the stuff that came up though that I thought i would NEVER use. For example using Henderson-Hasselbalch equation to determine drug distribution -> in the stomach where pH is _____ what proportion of Drug X with pKa _____ is able to be absorbed.

And like a fellow poster pointed out above, in Pulmonary you use lots of physics and acid base concepts/equations.

[Robin Hood]

Calculus is just for Physics, or I'm wrong? Because McGill doesn't list Calculus among it's prereqs (except for cegepian applicants).

[Davjw]

Calculus is just for Physics, or I'm wrong? Because McGill doesn't list Calculus among it's prereqs (except for cegepian applicants).

 

I'm not sure if you are just referring to medicine, but in general, calc is used in many, many more fields than just physics. Chemistry, economics, and statistics just to name a few.

[NLengr]

I was surprised by some of the stuff that came up though that I thought i would NEVER use. For example using Henderson-Hasselbalch equation to determine drug distribution -> in the stomach where pH is _____ what proportion of Drug X with pKa _____ is able to be absorbed.

And like a fellow poster pointed out above, in Pulmonary you use lots of physics and acid base concepts/equations.

 

Don't worry, you will never do that once you are in clinical medicine.

 

If you have some really strange drug problem you'll ask pharmacy.

[Robin Hood]

I'm not sure if you are just referring to medicine, but in general, calc is used in many, many more fields than just physics. Chemistry, economics, and statistics just to name a few.

 

Yes, I was referring to medicine.

[OttawaURookie]

I've learned a great deal from this thread

[thebouque]

Yes, I was referring to medicine.

 

Indeed no calculus in medicine whatsoever, even in 99.9% of the research fields. Medicine is very clinically oriented/practical. If you don't see your future life without calculus maybe engineering would be a better option? (even though engineers VERY rarely use it once they start working, they still use it more than medical doctors)

[rmorelan]

Indeed no calculus in medicine whatsoever, even in 99.9% of the research fields. Medicine is very clinically oriented/practical. If you don't see your future life without calculus maybe engineering would be a better option? (even though engineers VERY rarely use it once they start working, they still use it more than medical doctors)

 

In the real work I have used calculus just once and if I recall it didn't have to I just wanted to say that I used calculus once on a real problem.

[Robin Hood]

Must be somehow boring to not have calculus.

So calculus is a requirement just for physics. And even physics you don't use it a lot.

[seeking1]

In the real work I have used calculus just once and if I recall it didn't have to I just wanted to say that I used calculus once on a real problem.

 

Never mind that professional engineers have a lot of the calculus they use automated on computers.

[rmorelan]

Never mind that professional engineers have a lot of the calculus they use automated on computers.

 

we have a lot of the drug stuff in our calculators as well - nobody routinely has to do anything from first principles