Is biology better than physics for Nursing?

Bambles

I am thinking of becoming a nurse after I leave school. I have only begun to consider this career and was wondering, am I at a disadvantage if I study physics and chemistry for my leaving cert instead of Biology. I've read on another thread that physics and chemistry is better to become a doctor but I was still left wondering if it's the same for a nursing job. Any advice would be really helpful as I'm really confused at the moment about what I want to do, and if I need biology I will have to start organising to transfer first thing in september.

Chunky Monkey

You need to look at the course requirements for each course as each one may look for different subjects at different grades. If you're planning on staying in Ireland, you should find these in the prospectuses on the individual uni websites. For the UK, you can find it all on the UCAS website.

I've heard that chemistry is often required for medicine in order to weed out 'weaker' candidates as there is so much competition for a place.

I would have thought biology would be more helpful as you'll be dealing with disease but I don't know whether it's an actual requirement sorry.

Also, IMHO, I don't agree with what some people say about physics and chemistry being more important in medicine. In fact, I feel that biology is the most helpful, with chemistry being useful at times and physics only useful on occasion.

QueenOfLeon

It looks like you'll just need 1 science subject to fulfil the entry requirements, for most colleges and most different courses (general nursing, children's nursing etc). Look at www.qualifax.ie if you want to check every college that offers it. Some of them list "biological sciences" as a module, I doubt that you'd be much behind if you were missing a science but imo biology would be much more useful than physics. However if you think you'll get more points with physics than biology, stick with the physics as the points have been rising.

tfak85

i think to study nursing/midwifery in trinity you have to have biology but i don't know about other unis.....
on the plus side, i'm pretty sure that trinity accept irish as a foreign language, though i do feel it's beneficial to keep a language until the leaving cert.

mcdermla

I would recommend doing biology, as it will be a useful foundation for first year, but after that no LC science comes in handy. The points for nursing have increased and will continue to do so (there are a lot of unemployed nursing graduates in the country right noe, so they need to make the courses competitive), but you should think about what you really want to study and if you'll do better in it in the LC. Biology is easier than Physics I'd assume.