There is a professional need for more scientific methodology, but this can not be narrowed down to maths. Another professional need are analog communication competencies, from the very beginning. However, advanced methodical research training would really help to enhance and improve medical decision making (evaluation, monitoring, coding).

I think medical doctors should be good mathematicians because if you look at some scientific journals in medicine and biology, they are lot applications of math in these fields. However, for pre-medicine or pre-vet students in US, they have to take some basic math and statistics courses and the highest course they should take it is the Calculus for Life Scientists. These math courses at undergraduate level should prepare students well to pursue their medicine degree after graduation. Students will gain more experience with mathematical models and concepts while they are conducting their medical research studies.

Modern medicine now has at its disposal a wide and very sophisticated range of diagnostic and treatment equipment that has accelerated the development of medicine and significantly increased its effectiveness. This development has saved many human lives. These equipment work through complicated software produced by mathematicians and physicists with a high level of preparation and knowledge of mathematics, especially computer skills.

It is impossible for medical specialists, no matter the specialty in question, to master the operation of this equipment and their software, because this requires professional training that they do not have and that they will not acquire through post graduated training courses. It is a waste of time to try that the medicine specialists manage to master the necessary mathematics to know in depth the internal functioning of this equipment.

Due to this, the medicine specialists what they have to know well is:

· when and how to use this equipment,

· to analyze and interpret their results adequately,

· to know their limitations and requirements,

· the consequence for the patient due to their misuse,

It is also important to have the support of mathematicians and physicists to manipulate the most sophisticated and complex equipment as part of the medical team in charge of the use them

There is a professional need for more scientific methodology, but this can not be narrowed down to maths. Another professional need are analog communication competencies, from the very beginning. However, advanced methodical research training would really help to enhance and improve medical decision making (evaluation, monitoring, coding).

A lot is piled on a medical doctor's plate already. Sure, it wouldbe great to have the skill set of a mathematician, but personally I would rather have a skilled diagnostician who is there when you need him or her, who knows the right consultants to bring into the case, and the right treatments to apply to keep one healthy and bright and out of harm's way. People don't really

need a doctor with a Field's medal.

I n my opinion it is not necessary to be an expert in mathematics, the important thing is to have enough knowledge to be able to develop and understand the results of your students and other researchers.

May be. Well, why just mathematics then? They should be well versed with physics laws and chemistry as well.

Regards,

I agree with Dr. Catia Mam Nd Dr. Stephen sir

When students are graduated from secondary schools and admitted into a medical school, they should be highly qualified. This means they should have very high marks in Science, Physics, Chemistry& Mathematics. So, logically they must be good mathematicians.

Moreover, they should have a course in Mathematics& Medical Statistics during their basal medical learning. So, yes they must be good mathematicians.

Being good in Mathematics is indicated for the practical life of medical doctors. This is needed while prescribing drugs& calculating their doses, estimating the dose of anesthesia,....etc.

Also, medical researches (case control studies, cohort studies, ...etc) need a high level of statistics and mathematics in order to interpret results and set conclusions and recommendations.

thank you

Sometimes we can understand better our field of expertise by learning from other fields of science. This learning process could create new neural networks and connections in our brain. We could end up with a better and a more general understanding of science. For example; an engineer who learns poetry could be more creative in finding innovative solutions.

I agree with Mohammed K A Kaabar ... Medical Doctors must have good thinking and knowledge in mathematics.

Regards

Very nice question.

Obviously! Doctor must have following skills: perfection, accuricy, quick discision making, good knowledge of psychology, good knowledge medical technology, high confidence level, problem solving skills, multi-tasking, ability to work under pressure, good knowledge of economics, statistics, social issues, research attitude. Belief only on truth. Excellent communication skills. All these skills basically comes from good Mathematical ablities. Hence medical doctor must be good mathematician.

Dear Sahar Qazi.

I would like to answer your question

" why just mathematics then?"

because the Maths is a base tool to obtain any result in physics or chemistry or biology... if the person does not have good knowledge in Maths it will get confusing in own research work for instance: how to estimate some quantities and calculate it, how to find the exact probability.

In addition, basic research in chemistry and the use of an approved pharmaceutical cannot be done without mathematical sciences research to produce a good way to compress or analyze data, value financial products, process a signal from a medical device.

Regards

If the medical doctor does not have a good understanding of Maths how can be able to explain his need to mathematicians and physicists when getting their support? and how to analyze and interpret their results adequately?

So, Maths is not a waste of time.

Mathematics been a classical subject of high concern, its applications in medical and other fields are very essential. That's why it is been referred to as the mother of all science.

Mathematics may be good in medical studies through numerical applied and some countries recently try to use math in medical science

Some level of mathematical knowledge is good but a doctor does not need to be a genius in calculus to be able to help his/her patients effectively. I have seen some doctors struggle to do a simple conversion from degrees F to degrees C (or vice versa) or from kg to lbs. I pity them. So long as the doctor is able to see trends (for example in blood glucose level or LDL over the past few years) and make a proper dignosis and treatment recommendation that's all that is needed mathematically.

this link is useful

http://weusemath.org/?career=physician

regards

There are different scales of analysis involved requiring different levels of needs to use Mathematics? E.g. The individual level (e.g. a medical doctor receiving patients every day) versus the (Medical) research domain as a whole (e.g. development of medical Tools)?

Note that in some instances the top-specialists in Mathematics would be very happy to be assisted by the empathic medical doctors and nurses that ignore Mathematics during daily life practices

I think that generally, the practice of medicine requires analytical thinking. As opposed to reciting nonsensical fairy tales, as the cause and cure for ailments. Math is perhaps the most fundamental of tools required, to support analytical thinking. Doctors need to appreciate the research being done in their specialties, and need to grasp the meaning of the results. I'm not sure how one can do this, without a reasonably good understanding of math.

There are many people who go through life convinced that anything that sounds plausible is fact, people who don't seem to need verification for their beliefs. Medicine included just this mindset, centuries ago. Hopefully, we're past that today.

As a medical doctor, you are trained to Apply methods most often without having access to the details of Mathematics or other approaches that resulted in these methods, right?

Example 1:

You receive a patient that claims to be sick, you propose to take a blood sample for analysis, and get three sheets of paper providing the results of the basics in blood Chemistry. You compare normal results with outlier results, and depending on the types of chemicals with abnormal values you either propose to change behaviour (e.g. the blood profile indicates the patient drinks too much, so medical doctor proposes the patient to drink less) or to propose a pharmacological treatment that was developed by specialists in Pharmacy. Do you need to be expert in mathematics to adequately follow all these procedures?

Example 2:

Why should a medical doctor also be engineer to allow the medical doctor to fully understand all the mathematcis and physics that resulted in the development of a brain scanner?

versus

Why should a medical doctor also be engineer to allow the medical doctor to fully understand the mathematics and physics that resulted in the development of the car that the doctor uses to go to hospital?

How can the medical doctor track the fast growing medical literature when at the same time the same medical doctor has to track the fast growing literature in Mathematics and Physics?

Does this make sense?

But then you assume that medical doctors are at the same time outstanding engineers, e.g. to program computers to produce artificial lenses?

Mathematical calculations are an integral component in biochemistry and biophysics. And even the calculation of the dose of drugs (recalculation of mg per ml) is constantly required math skills. Not to mention the methods of metamatical statistics, without which it is impossible to do in medical scientific research