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For what it's worth, these exact same questions do show up on board exams, so it's not like medical students don't ever learn this information. What is a bit s

by pak 11y ago

For what it's worth, these exact same questions do show up on board exams, so it's not like medical students don't ever learn this information. What is a bit sad is that data analysis and quantitative skills continue to be de-emphasized in the pre-clinical curriculum for the sake of rote memorization of huge lists and tables, which would seem to be less and less important as instant access to references on smartphones becomes commonplace.

sghodas 11y ago
I'm studying for these boards right now, and these equations do show up. However, it's not the curriculum (at least not at my school) pushing the rote memorization of drugs, side effects, contraindications, microbes, etc. It's the board exams. A huge component of the exams is raw memorization of random facts that have no relation to anything (did you know rifampin makes your tears turn orange?). Unfortunately, there seems to be no incentive for the board examiners to change their exam.
usrusr 11y ago
I agree, people rarely enter medicine because they are particularly good at maths. All that memorization just happens to draw a different kind of personality. But it's hard to blame medicine for that: in the practical act of applying medical knowledge to heal people, the memorization is much more important than mathematical understanding. Where it breaks down is medical science, which relies so much more on subtle mathematical interpretation than most other empirical sciences. But that is just what happens when there is so little opportunity for deliberate experimentation and such a large dataset of "naturally occurring" experiments to observe. (and it surely is helped by this millenia old tradition of nonempirical medicine, i guess all that bloodletting based on beautiful but hilariously wrong theories is to this day giving the theory-building part of the scientific method a bad reputation in medicine, making it work completely in "stupid mode empirism" where every part of thinking that is not strictly looking at numbers is heavily frowned upon) Maybe there is a need for a stronger differentiation between academic paths leading to to applied medicine and those leading medical science. Biotech comes close, but it certainly isn't about teasing more reliable insights from clinical datasets. Other sciences take the easy road and simply train everybody for science, leaving practical application to learning on the job, but we sure would not want to get treated by that kind of MD.

by pak 11y ago

sghodas 11y ago

I'm studying for these boards right now, and these equations do show up. However, it's not the curriculum (at least not at my school) pushing the rote memorization of drugs, side effects, contraindications, microbes, etc. It's the board exams. A huge component of the exams is raw memorization of random facts that have no relation to anything (did you know rifampin makes your tears turn orange?). Unfortunately, there seems to be no incentive for the board examiners to change their exam.

usrusr 11y ago

I agree, people rarely enter medicine because they are particularly good at maths. All that memorization just happens to draw a different kind of personality. But it's hard to blame medicine for that: in the practical act of applying medical knowledge to heal people, the memorization is much more important than mathematical understanding. Where it breaks down is medical science, which relies so much more on subtle mathematical interpretation than most other empirical sciences. But that is just what happens when there is so little opportunity for deliberate experimentation and such a large dataset of "naturally occurring" experiments to observe. (and it surely is helped by this millenia old tradition of nonempirical medicine, i guess all that bloodletting based on beautiful but hilariously wrong theories is to this day giving the theory-building part of the scientific method a bad reputation in medicine, making it work completely in "stupid mode empirism" where every part of thinking that is not strictly looking at numbers is heavily frowned upon) Maybe there is a need for a stronger differentiation between academic paths leading to to applied medicine and those leading medical science. Biotech comes close, but it certainly isn't about teasing more reliable insights from clinical datasets. Other sciences take the easy road and simply train everybody for science, leaving practical application to learning on the job, but we sure would not want to get treated by that kind of MD.