As it so happens, my Dad, who is now retired spent a long career in Medicine
and Medical education. I forwarded most of that thread to him for comments
and here is his reply. (as a subnote, instead of raising doctors for kids,
he raised two Ph.D. physicists and has one as a son-in-law; I actually
suspect he considers that a success, but my portfolio might suggest
otherwise). He thoroughly enjoys asking us physics questions when we visit;
and quite often can quickly stump us.
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In answer to your question, I do have some opinion. I can't remember
noting anyone in clinical practice actually, consciously using physics. Of
course radiologists need to know about radiation and university
departments often have a physicist on their staff. To the extent that
physical chemistry is physics, of course it is used in medicine but mostly
subconsciously by practioners. Acid/base balance problems are daily
occurence in treating the very ill but at the front line level are mostly
dealt with by protocol and memorized routines. Transmembrane transport is
very much a function of electrical charge and solubility but I believe
most doctors consider it to be chemistry rather than physics.
Despite the apparent non use of physics at the clinical level I would
support the teaching of basic physics in college to pre-med students. This
would be for the discipline in thinking and problem solving. Like most
stuff you learn in college, you don't use it directly but the *process of
learning it is valuable*. Moreover, if one is to be able to keep up with
any new developments as an educated person one should be physics literate.
To use myself as an example: I had highschool physics and a non-calculus
college course in Auburn, but I know how soap works, how detergent
instillation in a newborn lung will counteract atelectasis, why ionic
drugs are absorbed with difficulty whereas fat soluble drugs penetrate
cell membranes readily. I understand where the oxygen we measure in the
blood (paO2) actually is (it is not combined with the hemoglobin) and I
can still ask good physics questions, nicht wahr?
Not physics, but one of the most useful courses I had in college was
inorganic qualitative analysis. Carrying multiple unkowns through the
scheme of A.A.Noyes in 1942,gave me a good head start in the concepts of
computer programming which I used in writing software for the Georgia Poison
Control System in 1986. The same held true in organic qualitative
analysis. Both the courses were sink or swim. The professor handed out an
unknown as said, "Find out what it is."
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I have one or two anecdotes I might post of stories he has told of teaching
medical students; but they more pertain to the need for knowledge of
chemistry in the MD rather than physics.