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Re: Do MDs need to know physics?



I have heard a small number of phsyicians, mostly from the "alternative"
medicine movement, describge how their entire medical school education
trained them only to be memorizers and not thinkers. A course or two,
and physics seems like the ideal candidate IF taught well, that could
not be passed without real use of analytic thinking and problem solving
skill would radically change medicine.

The history of medicine has been, and continues to be, replete with
examples of bad science that are maintained far beyond their time due
primarily to an orthodoxy that is sometimes little more scientific than
religious orthodoxies.

The most recent example perhaps may turn out to be the national hysteria
of the past 25 years for the low, low fat diet as the diet for everyone.
This is now beginning to crumble. There are so many others: low residue
diet for bowel problems, drinking milk for ulcers . . . . . . . . Going
back a bit in time: Bleeding people for everything, which we now of
course regard as "medieval silliness". How many of today's practices
rest on similar "science" and will be regarded as medieval 100 years
from now?

Could some good physics education help change this? Probably not, but
it's nice to think about.
Jerry Epstein