Comments on: More on the premed curriculum

By: The Josh

The Josh — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 03:24:46 +0000

couldnt agree with you more, for the most part. I would suggest also a language requirement given how many patient populations dont speak english as a primary language, and how about just going ahead and officially requiring some sort of research, since so many of us end up having to do it anyway at some point in our careers.

The econ course could help too, but i dont know how much of it i would realistically remember by the time you make it through the meat grinder.

By: Deirdre

Deirdre — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 18:44:56 +0000

Here at the University of Saskatchewan, College of Medicine, we have a term that might interest you – Bulimic Learning. Students stuff themselves with memorized facts, throw them up on the exam and starve for real knowledge. There are two things you can do to prevent this bad habit: 1. Identify clearly what medical students need to know instead of what professors want to teach. 2. Engage the students actively in learning. 3. Assess them on what they need to know to be physicians, not on their ability to memorize.

By: Alexa Blue

Alexa Blue — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 12:47:57 +0000

Bob: I’m just finishing medical school now. Our required epi/biostats class met once or twice a week for a month during first year, and was graded pass/fail based entirely on one’s performance on a single open-book test. I vaguely recall some teaching on 2×2 tables, a little bit on the meaning of power and alpha, but everything I now know about statistics I’ve had to teach myself. I can assure you that one can do quite well on the boards (at least step I) with zero knowledge of biostats.

See also thisJAMA article which suggests statistical illiteracy is a common phenomenon amongst young doctors.

As a general point, I think the presence of a fixed premedical curriculum per se is the problem, not necessarily the content of that curriculum. It encourages those who enter college knowing they want to be doctors to learn for the sake of making it to medical school, rather than for the sake of learning (if that concept even means anything).

By: Premed curriculum | Talking Out Of Turn

Premed curriculum | Talking Out Of Turn — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 03:53:26 +0000

[...] for my own reference, here are a couple of interesting posts on tweaking the premed curriculum: 1 and 2. This entry was written by Patrick Chan, posted on 1/27/2008 at 9:53 pm, filed under [...]

By: bob

bob — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 00:34:53 +0000

As far as I know, all schools nationally are required to have a biostatistics course in their curriculum. And it is, of course, tested on the boards. I think the days of “doctors who don’t understand anything about statistics” are largely due to the generation of doctors who went through medical school before these changes (although there were always some people who wouldn’t get it if you made them spend a year learning statistics).

Economics would be interesting, but I think you’d need a condensed 1 semester course because intro to macro/micro both go into some minutae that are unnecessary for medical practitioners.

By: pcb

pcb — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 21:34:52 +0000

DB,

I think a fundamental economics course or two need to be thrown in the mix also, given much of what ends up being discussed around here and on other medical blogs.

By: Matthew Mintz

Matthew Mintz — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 18:32:38 +0000

DB, I know you will post soon about the pre-clinical medical school curriculum (years 1 and 2), but it’s hard to talk about one without mentioning the other.
Some responses to this post and the previous mention that the pre-med curriculum is necessary to prepare students for the pre-clinical curriculum. This may be true, but it assumes that the pre-clinical curriculum will remain unchanged. With the proposed changes to the liscenscing exams, this will likely not be the case.
In fact, you could keep pre-medical curriculum heavy in some sciences, but not sciences students will unlikey use such as organic chemistry. What if (in addition to logic and humanties which you have rightly suggested), pre-medical students started to learn biochemistry, physiology, anatomy, physiology, etc. BEFORE entering medical school? The 4 years of medical school could them be entirely clinically focused (of course with basic science reinforcement throughout all 4 years).
The 2 years of memorizing basic science facts, followed by two years of clinical work where many of these facts are simply forgotten just doesn’t make sence. Perhaps thinking about medical education as a process which starts in the pre-medical years makes more sense.

By: Michael Rack, MD

Michael Rack, MD — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 18:22:51 +0000

DB, your curriculum sounds reasonable, but I would add statistics.

By: Christian Sinclair

Christian Sinclair — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 18:13:22 +0000

Great topic to cover. As an anthropology major in undergrad, I stumbled a bit with my early med school bio courses but got up to speed pretty quick. I feel my training in anthropology (both cultural and biological) has helped me greatly. I think your advocacy of psychology, philosophy/logic and ethics are great ideas, and would love to see them echoed in academia.

I think the idea of ‘weeding out’ with tougher premed courses is an important one to consider but I feel it probably plays a smaller role then many people assume.

By: over my med body! » DB on the Pre-Med Curriculum

over my med body! » DB on the Pre-Med Curriculum — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 17:42:05 +0000

[...] In which I agree almost completely. I’d add in a course on medical ethics, and one on health policy as well. [...]