How Important Is Organic Chemistry for Medical School?

valuemd (Admin)

A discussion on why organic chemistry is challenging for many premed students and how it helps in understanding pharmacology, biochemistry, and medical concepts.

liamt902 (Alumni)

Be honest with me. How much does orgo actually matter once you're in med school? I'm grinding through it right now and it's destroying my GPA and my sleep. If it's just a "weeder" class that I never use again I might restructure how much time I'm dumping into it.

henryadams (Alumni)

It's not "useless later" but it's also not the monster everyone fears in terms of direct application. Here's the thing though, orgo trains your brain to think in mechanisms and that mindset is exactly what biochem and pharmacology need. When you learn how a drug binds a receptor or how an enzyme transforms a substrate, that's orgo logic. You won't be drawing chair conformations as a doctor but the reasoning sticks with you.

masonhayes (Alumni)

@masonhayes (Alumni) this. Orgo is less about the content and more about the thinking. Pharmacology especially makes way more sense if you actually understood functional groups and reactivity.

benking443 (Student)

The struggle is universal lol. Orgo humbled all of us. But yeah biochem felt like "orgo with a purpose" to me.

sophiamoore (Alumni)

I always heard it's a weeder to see who can handle volume + abstraction. Is that real or just premed mythology?