Excelling in medical school requires more than just dissecting cadavers in anatomy lab, memorizing biochemical pathways or remembering the differential diagnosis of abdominal pain before rounds. Successful medical students must also employ empathy, cultural awareness, an understanding of ethics and abstract thinking — all of which can be gained from nonscience courses. For this reason, some medical schools are experimenting with admitting medical students who have a limited background in science but more extensive coursework in the humanities.
To get the most out of the time dedicated to a premedical education, students should understand how they can benefit from a diverse education . Here are five ways nonscience courses can prepare students for medical school.
[Learn to shine on medical school applications without a premed major.]
1. Connecting with patients: Courses like history and anthropology can help individuals gain a better grasp of how people live in a society defined by various cultures. These courses can enable premedical students to appreciate differences in people’s lives and their views about the world. In medical school, this appreciation allows students to connect with patients from diverse cultures, relate to their stories and more easily earn their trust.
Art and music can help people experience emotions and delve deeper into the human condition. This can be priceless for medical students embarking on their clinical rotations and confronting patients and family members dealing with the anxiety of illness or facing the end of life.
Courses in the humanities can also help cultivate curiosity, which translates into a desire to learn patients’ stories.
2. Abstract thinking: Learning pathology as medical students can be black and white, but caring for patients is often a gray area, requiring the ability to think abstractly. Successful medical students understand more than just their patients’ diseases, and they also have a grasp on the psychosocial, cultural and ethical issues that may influence health care delivery.
A patient who refuses medical treatment because of religious beliefs or who is incapable of making decisions and has no next of kin can pose myriad challenges for medical students. Premedical nonscience courses, especially courses in ethics or philosophy, can help premed students develop a more abstract framework.
During medical school as they begin to assume responsibility for taking care of patients, such a framework can be vital for tackling complex ethical, social and cultural issues that are an inevitable part of everyday patient care.
[Get tips on choosing the right undergraduate major for medical school.]
3. Enhanced learning: A strong background in the humanities and arts can enhance imagination and creativity. These so-called “right brain” skills are invaluable in a biomedical education because they enable students to visualize concepts like biochemical pathways, anatomic structures or physiologic processes in a way that improves learning.
Great scientists like Albert Einstein are said to have used skills such as a strong imagination to think about complex scientific concepts like relativity.
There are also parallels between how people learn language and how they learn medical science. Both require repetition and the constant application of ideas. It is no surprise that multilingual medical students often perform well in medical school.
4. Improved communication: Two key responsibilities of third-year medical students are to be able to walk into a room and understand a patient’s narrative and to communicate this narrative with their supervising physicians through their patient notes and presentations. In fact, on medical school rotations, the quality of patient notes and presentations weighs heavily in students’ evaluations. Writing courses or courses in speech and communication can help medical students better communicate orally and in writing.
[Learn how to cultivate communication skills for med school admissions success.]
5. Better understanding of the health care system: In today’s convoluted health care system, medical care is not provided in silos. Legal and financial issues directly impact the care doctors provide for patients, for example.
Having a basic understanding of finance, law and political science can help medical students better navigate the health care system and take into account the external forces — such as access to health care and health care equity — that directly influence health outcomes in their patients.
After all, medicine is an art and a science — students with a strong background in nonscience courses may have an easier time excelling in the art of medicine when they embark on their medical education. Furthermore, cultivating an interest in nonscience disciplines can help prevent burnout, bring joy and enable students to find balance and unwind after a long day of dissecting cadavers in the anatomy lab.
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5 Ways Nonscience Courses Prepare Students for Medical School originally appeared on usnews.com
