[mr_overalls]

I don't know if I would go that far. University education usually involves a ton of general-education classes for the first two years: English, science, history, math, basic science, etc. High school quality is quite uneven in the US, so these classes are largely necessary, imho.

Also, that's not to mention the many "pre-med" classes that medical schools require for applicants. Are high school kids going to take the organic chemistry, biochem, etc. necessary for med school?

[nicoburns]

> Are high school kids going to take the organic chemistry, biochem, etc. necessary for med school?

Due to the competitiveness of getting a place on a medicine course, it's pretty much impossible to get into a medicine degree here in the UK without having taken Physics, Chemistry and Biology at A-level, and maybe maths too. So... yes.

Note also: medical degrees are longer than other degrees in Europe (5 years instead of the standard 3 here in the UK). But you go directly into a specialised medicine course. I think you can do a graduate medicine degree in 4 years if you have an undergraduate degree in a related field, but that's relatively uncommon.

[dagw]

Are high school kids going to take the organic chemistry, biochem, etc. necessary for med school?

Why can't med school teach all the classes needed for med school?

[learc83]

1. Med school is a lot more expensive than undergraduate education.

2. Making a decent grade in those classes at an accredited school is a good filter.

3. MDs aren’t just technicians. They are leaders, managers, and ethicists. They have a higher level of legally protected autonomy than nearly any other profession. Given that, I think that 2 years of general education is appropriate. For the same reasons I think general education is appropriate for other professions with a high degree of autonomy, authority, and impact, e.g., civil engineers, lawyers, and teachers (all the teachers reading this are laughing at the autonomy part).

[fallingknife]

Ask any doctor you know if they ever use organic chemistry.

[learc83]

Topics build on each other. The average working engineer designing circuit boards isn’t calculating the nth derivative of a function on a daily basis.

That doesn’t mean that they didn’t need to understand calculus as a prerequisite to other classes where they did learn skills they use frequently.

MDs also aren’t technicians, they are a self regulating group of professionals with a high degree of legally protected autonomy and authority. Individually they make life or death decisions more frequently than anyone else. And as a group they make up regulatory bodies that impact everyone’s medical care. Like lawyers they have a very disproportionate impact on society. I think some amount of general education and general science background is appropriate.