How does physics help you if you are going to be a doctor?

Answer 1

Just for getting into med school really.
Phoenix and Mack are right, but I might add as a doctor of internal medicine and cancer / leukemia medicine that physics really has NO utility in everyday practice - UNLESS you are a radiation therapy specialist - and even those docs have physicists employed to work out the precise physics. The reason to take and score well in physics is more a part of the weeding out process that goes into selection for medical school. Competition is tough for medical school admission.
Grades in tough courses like physics and organic chemistry are usually the deal maker or breaker. I never again needed organic chemistry, physics, or calculus once I was in med school. Actually, I found the medical education in med school was much easier than the science courses you have to ace to be accepted. Getting in is the tough part. Maybe it's just that the medical stuff was more interesting and more obviously useful. I kept my physics, chemistry, and calculus books for about 20 years after college before throwing them out. I never needed to open them again.

Answer 2

I think the most important part of physics is learning to how solve problems. More than any other branch of science, you learn how to think abstractly about things in the real world, and how to mentally simplify physical systems to make problems more tractable.

I like the way Richard Feynman put it:
"Knowing the name of something is not the same as knowing something".

Of course, if you're going to be a doctor, you need to know the names of thousands of things, but if you don't understand how and why everything works the way it does, and how it does so in chorus with all the other bits and pieces, you'll be in trouble. I think physics encourages this holistic approach to learning and thinking.

You won't use a lot of the specifics you learn in physics on a daily basis, unless you go into Radiology, or something.

Answer 3

Starting with thermometer to complicated radiotherapy it is physics all over. There is no medical practice without physics.
A radiologist needs more of physics than anyone else.

Answer 4

similar to complex math. we may not apply the formulas to everyday life, but the "lesson" is in teaching HOW to think rather than what to think. physics is a beautiful balance of push and pull that is just plain wonderous, even for doctors.