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Article has been hugged so commenting more along the comments here. Pharmacy school teaches Calculus. Why would that be? Do you need to run derivatives and int

Article has been hugged so commenting more along the comments here. Pharmacy school teaches Calculus. Why would that be? Do you need to run derivatives and integrals to fill prescriptions? No. Teaching maths, particularly calculus, teaches people how to 1) not make mistakes and 2) catch your own mistakes quickly. Vitally important skills for someone filling out live-saving medicine.

jacobolus 1y ago
The point of learning mathematics is not to "not make mistakes". More strongly: the misconception that mathematics or mathematics education is about getting "right answers" as quickly and accurately as possible is a disaster for learning. A calculus class should ideally be making someone think much harder than that. Calculus is about understanding the relationships involved with continuous quantities and modeling the way things move and change. It is a basic prerequisite for understanding biochemistry and statistics, essential background for understanding pharmaceuticals.
tptacek 1y ago
I'm pretty sure this is a retcon. There are subject-matter-specific reasons PharmD's learn calculus. They don't use it day-to-day, but lots of STEM curricula (a) don't make sense without calculus and (b) don't lead to jobs where you're integrating by parts every day.
9rx 1y ago
> Teaching maths, particularly calculus, teaches people how to 1) not make mistakes and 2) catch your own mistakes quickly. Vitally important skills for someone filling out live-saving medicine. Learning calculus achieves the same effect, though. It is not the teaching that is important (although some may find it useful).
pharrington 1y ago
You literally need calculus to understand dosage response curves.
- aoki 1y ago
  Fortunately, medical researchers discovered Tai’s Formula for the area under a piecewise linear function. No calculus required! :-) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tai%27s_model https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tai%27s_model
  - pharrington 1y ago
    lmfao yeah I heard about this!
Telemakhos 1y ago
> Article has been hugged Article archive: https://archive.is/2AdUJ https://archive.is/2AdUJ It's very short.
sn9 1y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Area_under_the_curve_(pharmacokinetics) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Area_under_the_curve_(pharmaco...

jacobolus 1y ago

The point of learning mathematics is not to "not make mistakes". More strongly: the misconception that mathematics or mathematics education is about getting "right answers" as quickly and accurately as possible is a disaster for learning. A calculus class should ideally be making someone think much harder than that. Calculus is about understanding the relationships involved with continuous quantities and modeling the way things move and change. It is a basic prerequisite for understanding biochemistry and statistics, essential background for understanding pharmaceuticals.

tptacek 1y ago

I'm pretty sure this is a retcon. There are subject-matter-specific reasons PharmD's learn calculus. They don't use it day-to-day, but lots of STEM curricula (a) don't make sense without calculus and (b) don't lead to jobs where you're integrating by parts every day.

9rx 1y ago

> Teaching maths, particularly calculus, teaches people how to 1) not make mistakes and 2) catch your own mistakes quickly. Vitally important skills for someone filling out live-saving medicine. Learning calculus achieves the same effect, though. It is not the teaching that is important (although some may find it useful).

pharrington 1y ago

You literally need calculus to understand dosage response curves.

aoki 1y ago
Fortunately, medical researchers discovered Tai’s Formula for the area under a piecewise linear function. No calculus required! :-) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tai%27s_model https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tai%27s_model
- pharrington 1y ago
  lmfao yeah I heard about this!

Telemakhos 1y ago

> Article has been hugged Article archive: https://archive.is/2AdUJ https://archive.is/2AdUJ It's very short.

sn9 1y ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Area_under_the_curve_(pharmacokinetics) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Area_under_the_curve_(pharmaco...