Is physics required for Medicine in India and anywhere else in the world?

[supergirldq]

I have Physics at SL along with Biology and Chemistry at HL. I currently have seven subjects because I have all three sciences.

Do I really need to take physics or can I drop it and concentrate on the other six?

[ChocolateDrop]

Speaking for the rest of the world you can drop it. Most university's knowledge of the IB is you can take at most 2 sciences with the traditional diploma, so they wouldn't expect students to have all three. So just focus on two, I'd recommend Chemistry and Biology.

[Guest Positron]

I don't know about the 'rest of the world', but you'd need all three sciences for medicine at least in Sweden and Finland. I'd imagine very few international students being interested in studying medicine in Finland anyways, (I'm not even sure if they offer any degrees in English) but based on the little knowledge I have of med schools, Karolinska Institutet in Sweden is supposed to be pretty good.

And here's the important bit: it is possible to apply for an Irregular Diploma. That's basically an exemption from Group 3, hence you can take all sciences without having to take seven subjects. That exemption will be given to a student who demonstrates that the university course he/she is hoping to enroll in has an entry requirement of having taken all the three sciences. So, if you went to your IB coordinator and claimed you planned to study medicine at Karolinska Institutet, or another university requiring all three sciences, your IB coordinator could get you an exemption from Group 3. Obviously you wouldn't actually have to go to Karolinska Institutet, or whichever university you claimed you planned to go to. Before doing this, you should, of course, check the policy on irregular diplomas with the university you actually plan to go to, as some unis want the regular diploma. But if you're certain you want to go to med school, and you're not particularly interested in social sciences, this might be something you'd want to do.

Edited March 10, 2013 by Positron

[Award Winning Boss]

You wouldn't need it in England. (If you want to apply to Cambridge you'd need HL maths though)

[khimberleigh]

In Australia you don't need physics for medicine, although you do need maths SL or higher.

[Arrowhead]

As far as Medicine in India is concerned, I don't think it makes as much of a difference if you have PCMB HL, so long as you're taking all 4 of them in mostly HL capacity.

You should know that your subject choices are merely a procedural consideration and if you really want to study Medicine on merit then what matters most is your CET score and rank. To that end, if you know you want to eventually study Medicine in India, then why would you bother taking the IB diploma at all? It's like you're purposefully making things impossible for yourself when you could easily do something easy like the ISCs, or better yet, CBSE (which will actually help you prep for CET entrances because a lot of the content overlaps!)

[cricketcrazynerd]

Don't you already have to give entrance exams for most courses anyways in India? Physics might be an advantage, but I don't this it is really that important.

In Australia, you only need Chemistry for medicine in most unis. Having bio is also recommended