How should we teach physics to future life scientists and physicians? The physics community has an exciting and timely opportunity to reshape introductory physics courses for this audience. A June 2009 report from the American Association of Medical Colleges (AAMC) and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI), as well as the National Research Council’s Bio2010 report, clearly acknowledge the critical role physics plays in the contemporary life sciences. They also issue a persuasive call to enhance our courses to serve these students more effectively by demonstrating the foundational role of physics for understanding biological phenomena and by making it an explicit goal to develop in students the sophisticated scientific skills characteristic of our discipline. This call for change provides an opportunity for the physics community to play a major role in educating future physicians and future life science researchers.One key distinction between our textbook and the work described in The Back Page editorial is that our book is aimed toward an intermediate level, while the IPLS movement is aimed at the introductory level. Like it or not, premedical students have a difficult time fitting additional physics courses into their undergraduate curriculum. I know that here at Oakland University, I’ve been able to entice only a handful of premed students to take my PHY 325 (Biological Physics) and PHY 326 (Medical Physics) classes, despite my best efforts to attract them and despite OU’s large number of students hoping to attend medical school (these classes have our two-semester introductory physics sequence as a prerequisite). So, I think there’s merit in revising the introductory physics class, which premedical students are required to take, if your goal is to influence premedical education. As The Back Page editorial states, “the challenge is to offer courses that cultivate general quantitative and scientific reasoning skills, together with a firm grounding in basic physical principles and the ability to apply those principles to living systems, all without increasing the number of courses needed to prepare for medical school.” The Back Page editorial also cites the “joint AAMC-HHMI committee … report, Scientific Foundations for Future Physicians (SFFP). This report calls for removing specific course requirements for medical school admission and focusing instead on a set of scientific and mathematical ‘competencies.’ Physics plays a significant role…”
A number of physics educators have already reshaped their courses to better address the needs of life science and premedical students, and more are actively doing so. Here we describe what these reports call for, their import for the physics community, and some key features of these reshaped courses. Our commentary is based on the discussions at an October 2009 conference (www.gwu.edu/~ipls), at which physics faculty engaged in teaching introductory physics for the life sciences (IPLS), met with life scientists and representatives of NSF, APS, AAPT, and AAMC, to take stock of these calls for change and possible responses from the physics community. Similar discussion on IPLS also took place at the 2009 APS April Meeting, the 2009 AAPT Summer Meeting, and the February 2010 APS/AAPT Joint Meeting.
How do you fit all the biomedical applications of physics into an already full introductory class? The Back Page editorial gives some suggestions. For instance, “an extended discussion of kinematics and projectile motion could be replaced by more study of fluids and continuum mechanics... [and] topics such as diffusion and open systems could replace the current focus on heat engines and equilibrium thermal situations.” I agree, especially with adding fluid dynamics (Chapter 1 in our book) and diffusion (Chapter 4), which I believe are absolutely essential for understanding biology. I have my own suggestions. Although Newton’s universal law of gravity, Kepler’s laws of planetary motion, and the behavior of orbiting satellites are fascinating and beautiful topics, a premed student may benefit more from the study of osmosis (Chapter 5) and sound (Chapter 13, including ultrasound). Electricity and magnetism remains a cornerstone of introductory physics (usually in a second semester of a two-semester sequence), but the emphasis could be different. For instance, Faraday’s law of induction can be illustrated using magnetic stimulation of the brain, Ampere’s law by the magnetic field around a nerve axon, and the dipole approximation by the electrocardiogram. In a previous post to this blog, I discussed how Intermediate Physics for Medicine and Biology addresses many of these issues. Russ Hobbie will be giving an invited paper about medical physics and premed students at the July 2010 meeting of the American Association of Physics Teachers. When he gives the talk it will be posted on the book website.
One way to shift the focus of an introductory physics class toward the life sciences is to create new homework problems that use elementary physics to illustrate biological applications. In the 4th edition of Introductory Physics for Medicine and Biology, Russ Hobbie and I constructed many interesting homework problems about biomedical topics. While some of these may be too advanced for an introductory class, others may (with some modification) be very useful. Indeed, teaching a traditional introductory physics class but using a well-crafted set of homework problems may go a long ways toward achieving the goals set out by The Back Page editorial.
Let me finish this blog entry by quoting the eloquent final paragraph of The Back Page editorial. Notice that the editorial ends with the same central question that began it. It is the question that motivated Russ Hobbie to write the first edition of Intermediate Physics for Medicine and Biology (published in 1978) and it is the key question that Russ and I struggled with when working on the 4th edition.
The physics community faces a challenging opportunity as it addresses the issues surrounding IPLS courses. A sizable community we serve has articulated a clear set of skills and competencies that students should master as a result of their physics education. We have for a number of decades incorporated engineering examples into our physics classes. The SFFP report asks us to respond to another important constituency. Are we ready to develop courses that will teach our students how to apply basic physical principles to the life sciences? The challenges of making significant changes in IPLS courses are daunting if we each individually try to take on the task. But with a community-wide effort, we should be able to meet this challenge. The physics community is already moving to develop and implement changes in IPLS courses, and the motivations for change are strong. The life science and medical school communities stress that a working knowledge of physical principles is essential to success in all areas of life science including the practice of medicine. Thus we see significant teaching and learning opportunities as we work to answer the question that opened our discussion: how should we teach physics to future physicians and life scientists?
A well balanced introductory physics course should certainly cover some biomedical applications. I've found the textbook by Giancoli to already have a small but good sampling of biophysics examples and problems in each chapter. However, putting more focus on biomedical aspects will, as you said, necessarily take time from other topics. Quite frankly, I find the idea of removing Newton's law of gravitation and the behavior of satellites downright appalling. The realization, first by Newton and by students in introductory physics today, that the same force which makes the apple fall also makes the moon orbit the earth (and said behavior be calculated using the same simple equation), is a mind-opening experience which gives appreciation for the beauty of the universe in which we live. To deprive students who will likely never take another physics course of this insight, of this *experience*, would be a great disservice.
ReplyDeleteChanging the introductory curriculum to be biophysics heavy, in general, would likely prove difficult to implement in a satisfactory way. Adding too much biophysics content would take away from those who are not as interested in the topic, while not adding a significant amount of content would cause pre-med students to continue to lack the desired physics background.
I suggest a simple, but perhaps more difficult to implement solution. A separate course which *replaces* introductory physics, "Introductory Physics for Biology and Medicine," could be the most effective way of teaching the biophysics desired for pre-med students. As it would replace their required introductory physics courses, it would not suffer the same problem of getting pre-med students registered as your courses. At the same time, it would simultaneously not require information to be cut for non-biomedical students and allow a much greater focus on biophysics for biomedical students. Academically it's a win-win, but I would imagine starting a new course that is designed to meet requirements (and not simply be an elective credit) could be a bureaucratic nightmare.
I believe that a separate course for premed and biology students is what is being contemplated in the editorial, not adding biomedical topics (and dropping other physical topics) to a class the engineers are taking. Your point about dropping Newton's law is well-taken. One could defend it as something everyone should know, regardless of professional goals. On the other hand, I can think of no biological or medical use for this knowledge other than, perhaps, the small field of space medicine. I expect the entire process of redesigning the introductory physics class for premed students will be filled with difficult decisions such as this. Thanks for the comments.
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