I was read today through KCUMB’s curriculum and was wondering a few things about medical school curriculums in general.
How much do we use what we learned in Organic Chemistry in medical school classes? My children’s pediatrician for example told me that she had to take calculus three times before she passed, yet she never used it again once she was in medical school. In her mind it was simply a weeding out class, because she only uses algebra. So I was curious if Organic chemistry was something similar? Something we put a lot of time and effort into understanding, but perhaps do not actually use that much?
Secondly, KCUMB lists many electives which all sound very interesting, but they do not specify how many a student will take each block or semester. How do electives work then?
Thanks!
I would say that I have not directly used organic chemistry so far in year 1 at KCUMB. It has probably been helpful though in biochem when we are talking about macromolecules (I know their structure) or pharmacology (L vs R drugs). So far that is it though.
Hope that helps. It probably is a bit of weeding out but it is a good grounding.
Here is the extent of my practical application of organic chemistry: Nexium is the S enantiomer of Prilosec. The GI consultant who treated my patient for erosive esophagitis thinks this is significant. The insurance company, who now requires prior authorization for Nexium refills, and who has left my nurse on hold for the last half hour, does not.
- Mommylinn Said:
virtually none of it
I haven’t actually “used” organic chemistry. But it has given me the backgound to understand conversion of testosterone to dihydrotestosterone,methy lation of DNA, L and D enantimers, and to be comfortable with a variety of incidental chemistry involved in medicine. Did I need to know how to synthesize multiple compounds? No. Did I need to understand that estriol has three alcohol groups, estradiol has two, and estrone has a ketone group — yes. It’s the very simple terminology and structure, that’s all.
Kate
The thing that I kept thinking all through O-chem was: this is the PROCESS that the docs I work with use.
You don’t always just “know” the answer (like in some class you just memorize and regurgitate info), but you have to systematically approach each problem. What do I know, what can I figure out, and where can this go from here? Even for the questions I initially looked at and went “Ack! What is THIS?!,” I was able to step back, look for what I did know, and then proceed methodically.
For that, I think O-chem is useful.
Annette
I’ve been told that the information learned in the prereqs is next to worthless. It is the thought process involved which the classes develop that is what we’ll use in med school. Of course that may just be folks way of justifying to ourselves why they put us through this crap…oh I mean this joyous adventure of butterflies and rainbows that is prereqs… 
- jmdmd Said:
haha, well said. Hospitals love nexium because it's more effective. Insurance companies love prolixin, because it's cheaper even than prilosec. But at least there's a better discussion to be had there than, say, Nuvigil when your patient probably doesn't even need Provigil. But I digress.
As far as the original question, there are a few answers.
As far as directly applying organic chemistry to patients' medical problems, it probably doesn't occur that much. You could probably get by without understanding ochem.
However - and I hope this doesn't come across as supercilious, because that's not how it's intended - I think one thing that separates physicians from other members of the healthcare team is an understanding of the underlying processes. Essentially, we are taught to understand at least one level of abstraction deepeer than the (patho)physiology itself, so that we understand what's going on and why. So in addition to knowing "We use drug X for condition Y," we also, in theory, understand something of the chemistry of how and why that drug does what it does. Understanding that next level of abstraction is where ochem and biochem come in handy, I think.
As well, it serves as a weed-out course, though perhaps not in the way you'd think. I don't think it's just "Hurr, here's a hard course for people to fail!" Rather, organic chemistry is the first class many students have *ever* taken where the answers aren't simply regurgitation. Instead of memorizing the answers and simply spitting them back - which a large portion of education is, especially if you're avoiding the humanities and "soft" sciences - in ochem, you have to memorize the underlying concepts and then synthesize your answer. That's why it serves as a weedout course. Not because it's hard in and of itself, but because it's freakin' different than most other classes, and it's different in a potentially relevant way.