How much does pre-med help in med school?

[Hedwig]

I was wondering something. Every premedical student has to take:

General chemistry
Organic chemistry
General biology / zoology
General physics

So, what subjects within these subjects did you find you needed to know for medical school?

I ask because during my interview at PCOM, I sat in on an allergy/immunology lecture. During the lecture, the doctor started talking about stereoisomerism and the R and S enantiomers of albuterol, principles taught (at my school, at least) in Organic Chemistry I.

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[DRNickiTay]

To be honest I think that many of the concept I learned in pre-med did not get touched on in my first two clinical year. Pretty much everything I learned was for the MCAT, but not a lot of utility for the basic science of medical school. Of course biochemistry hit metabolism and Kreb cycle hard. For me the most beneficial classes were the biology courses. I was a psychology major and did not take biochem, anatomy/physiology, microbiology or biochemistry prior to medical school, so as you can imagine the first year I hit the books HARD. Just my point of view.

Nichole Taylor
MS3 AZCOM

 

[kristing]

The classes that helped me the most were the nonpremed ones:

Microbiology
An upper division Micro class
Immunology

I also took anatomy and phys but I don't know if they prepared me anymore than my regular old bio class. Plus we didn't do human cadavers, and I know the human gross anatomy that some of my classmates had first was very helpful.

Also having good experience in reading scientific journals is going to be a large help on the boards (according to others who've gone before me). (I've got a master's and a thesis under my belt, so I the scientific lit reading is like second nature to me)

kristin

 

[ckent]

Let's see if I can sum up one yr's worth of orgo that is pertinent for medicine:
1. similar structures probably have similar functions (basis for variations of the same drug produced by different company)
2. isomers are different versions of the same molecule. With most chemical reactions, 50:50 isomers are created and put into drugs. sometimes, only one isomer is efficacious, and therefore it helps patents... I mean patients, if you can isolate the efficacious isomer and sell that
3. the ends of each one of those sticks in drug structures is equivalent to a carbon atom
4. pharmacokinetics is important if you don't have the drug co.s recommendation for how often to give the drug to the person in front of you
Seriously though, at my school, we were shown a bunch of images of drug molecules and told a lot about drug molecules by pharmacists and phD's, but we were never tested on them and they never seemed very pertinent so it went in one ear and out the other for most of my classmates
That being said, the pre-med reqs are important since being a doctor isn't just about knowing what's in your field, it's having a base of knowledge that you could build off of in a lot of fields. I just got off of my ortho week, where they were talking about vector diagrams and tension pulleys which I vaguely remember them mentioning in physics. You never know what might become "pertinent" during your career, that's why it's important to have a solid base of knowledge that you can build on.

 

[DrQuinn]

I agree with teh above posters... the non pre med courses help the most...

I was a health sciences major in undergrad (James Madison University), and took all the req classes. I also took Human Anatomy, and Advanced Human Anatomy. Thankfully, at JMU, we use human cadavers, and its pretty intense there (very hard class... none of this multiple choice crap). I also ended up TA'ing it... and I definately had a heads up in anatomy in med school. I actually think JMU"s anatomy class is harder than med schools but that's just me.

I wish I had taken some form of micro or immuno, it would have helped a lot. I'm graduating medical school in 4 months and I sitll have a hard time remembering which immunoglobulin does what...


Q

 

[kristing]

I was thinking about this today some more, and someone in my class brought up a good poinnt - if you are familiar with the terms, that is a huge leg up, so even though org chem and gen chem don't seem to be preparing, they are because you've already heard all those terms. I think that's why the micro and immuno helped me so mucch - I remembered very little immuno, but I knew all the vocabulary already and I was far advanced in that respect in my class. Pharm, on the other hand is totally kicking my heine, because my experience with the drugs is antibiotics and pain meds. All those new terms are KILLING me.

Just a few thoughts...

kristin
MS2
AZCOM

 

[Chagas]

Don't let a few big words from your pre-med past worry you. As a PCOM student I can tell you that a lot of fancy scientific words are thrown around all the time in various lectures but you'll never see them on an exam either in school or on boards (but ya gotta know medicine). Everything you're taught in med school builds on things that you've supposedly already learned to get there. Sure they can mention stereoisomers etc. because you had it already but they won't waste the time to teach it to you again..... as far as actual premed courses being of help... biochem is nice to have in your background along with genetics and micro which will all be stuffed down your throat 2nd term first year (@ PCOM)... but honestly as a non-premed student in med school and near the top of my class I didn't have any science background going in and I was able to get where I am by busting my a$$. One bit of advice, assuming you get in somewhere and don't go for a master's degree, is to enjoy the summer before starting school and if you want to read up on anything then get a few board review books and skim through them to familiarize yourself with terms and concepts (pathology, immunology, micro are key.... don't worry about pharm because you won't remember the drugs anyway). Good luck!

 

[save10]

In many ways the premed classes help, but you are not necessarily at an advantage by being a bio-chem or some other science type major. Those classes will make some of the first year easier, but realize that bio-chem (for instance) is a small part of the curriculum. I had this conversation with a classmate who was a biochem major. It seemed to us that the people who really had any kind of advantage were those people (and there were a few) with masters degrees. My class had people with masters in physiology, biochem, pharm, microbiology and one guy who was an anatomy teacher in highschool. Those people really did well on those particular subjects. The rest of us (science majors included) just tried to tread water. But its really not that bad. I'm serious. But dont go out an get a friggin masters if you dont already got one. As the previous poster said......

If I could do any classes over however as a pre-med it would be these a) some sort of neuro class. because neuro was like another language and i still have no idea what the lady was talking about. pyramidal decu-what now? are we in egypt? b) spanish. not for the first two years, but for the rest of your life. Its one thing to be able to order beer in TJ. Quite another to try and get an adequate H&P from a patient who comes in to the ED with NVD, abdominal guarding and only speaks spanish. Believe me a translator is not always available and you never think it will be a big deal until the patient is there and really sick. Then you'll being thinking to yourself 'Ich bin ein dumm kopf' for taking deutsch instead of espanol.

 

[AviatorDoc]

I'd like to politely disagree with the previous posters. Here's why...

Med school is all about building up a vocabulary base. Medicine is a language all its own. That's why its the older docs who know the most clinically, even if they've been out of school for 30 years. That's why its called "practice."

You don't have to take a ton of science courses to do well in medical school. But you do use things that you learned in the premed courses. MRI is a clinical version of NMR. Having this background helps when MRI lectures come up. It doesn't make the diagnosis, and it doesn't treat the patient... that's what med school is for.

If I was back in college, I'd probably take a histology course. That was a brutal course here, primarily b/c it introduced us to a billion and one new terms. I don't think I learned any real concepts in there.

Can you look at a drug's structure and tell if its lipophilic or hydrophilic? If so, you can predict where it will be distributed in the body. Sure, the PDR will tell you this, but having that skill means one less thing you have to look up.

Before I got to med school, I didn't even know where the gall bladder was, let alone where the bile duct intersects with the hepatic duct. So, I had to learn the basic stuff on top of the hard stuff. Would've saved some time.

So there's the rub.

Learn all you can but you can never learn it all.

 

[LovelyRita]

Here at UHS we are studying cardiovascular right now. I find myself revisiting certain physics concepts like flow, resistance, velocity, etc.

So don't believe anyone who says you'll NEVER use it again. And I like what Aviator said about learn everything you can, but you can't learn everything.

Good luck!
M.