Striving for innovation: physics, engineering, and medicine

i_wanna_be_Brown
Fri, 20 Jan 2012 11:35:12 +0000

Definitely don’t have to take courses from the english department specifically, as long as they are writing intensive they will count (e.g. I used courses for my Classics major to satisfy this requirement). I imagine the Columbia core is enough.
See plumazul/your college’s advisor, every school has different AP requirements and all med school cares about is that you have COURSE CREDIT.
Many schools require biochem, few require statistics, although if you’re interested in MD/PhD and thus research as an undergrad, statistics is a very useful course for your own knowledge and being selected for research spots.
Can’t answer this for you
Med schools don’t care what you major in. They just care that they can envision you as a physician. MSTPs want to envision you as a physician scientist and so you need research but similarly, doesn’t really matter what field as long as you can portray yourself as they want to see you (a physician scientist, not just a physician who does research).
If you want to go straight out, my personal recommendation is to just bang it all out summer after sophomore year (I guess it also depends on your EC/course loads during the school year because maybe some point during junior year is easier for you). The bottom line is you need to take the test by the end of the spring before your app cycle starts. Depending on whether you take it during the summer or the school year, your prep need only start 2-6 months prior at most. Plumazul likes to advocate the slow burn study method and would probably advocate you start reviewing orgo and physics, but with your heavy schedule, i imagine a cram period later on will be more effective for you.


I have no idea what the Fu program is and don’t really have time to look it up, but physics to MD/PhD isn’t exactly mind blowing innovation. With nuclear medicine and imaging becoming so popular, lots of physics and engineering oriented people are doing research in medicine. Don’t forget to make sure you do enough ECs to prove you can be a doctor too, otherwise no MD/PhD is going to take you regardless of how good your science is.