High School Biology Grades and Medical School Performance: Is There a Relationship Between Them?

Medical schools aim to choose the best students at the selection. Even if the definition of the “best” is varying, one of the measures that are commonly considered is high school grades. In these grades, biology has a special emphasis because it has been seen as a prerequisite to medical school, especially in Asian countries.

Moreover, some students may have encountered the view that “if you like studying biology, you should choose medicine in higher education”. But is it true that there are strong ties between biology and medicine in terms of student performance? Would those who are successful in biology be successful in medical school?

A group of researchers from Singapore conducted a study to answer this question. They analyzed the performance of students with and without biology in early years of medical school.

The flamingo is ready to present interesting results.

Is there a clear evidence base for the biology prerequisite? To shed light on this, researchers conducted a retrospective study by comparing the performances of five cohorts of Year-1 and Year-2 medical students. The written assessment scores and anatomy practical exam scores of more than five hundred medical students were obtained. Some of these students had biology backgrounds before medical school, while others did not. The researchers compared their scores in medical school.

Let’s jump into the results.

There were no significant differences between the biology groups and non-biology groups in terms of written assessments and anatomy practical exams, except for one cohort where the non-biology group outperformed the biology group.

As the authors concluded, “having a prior biology qualification does not make a difference in performance in the early years of medical school”. These results suggest that we still have no clear evidence to consider biology as the “heart of eligibility” for medical studies. Even if the emphasis on biology may be specific to certain Asian contexts, this study could help us to rethink the prerequisites at our institutions or in our countries.

If you want to read more, you can find the link to the article at the description of the video: https://youtu.be/OXwDaVy9iv8

See you and adios para amigos!

And also, don’t forget the flamingo.

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