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I'd prefer my surgeon have a demonstrated long track record of successful procedures similar to the one he/she's about to perform on me, thereby having demonstrated an ability to do the job.
But that's just me. The more I live in the real world, the less I care about someone's GPA. After all, what was that saying about people who can't do?
That doesn't apply to medicine as every doc. anywhere in the US performing any legit procedure is an academic heavyweight. IOW you may not care but the people who selected the doc. for med. school, residency, fellowship etc. did for you.
Plenty don't care. You think people who travel abroad to Turkey for cheaper surgery (medical tourism) know or care about the grades of their surgeon? Nope. They're looking for the reviews.
To the OP, as always, it depends on your industry. No employer has ever asked to see my GPA, most have not even asked to see my degree.
School is more direct effort and time invested translates to success.
Things tend to screw up at work whether you do things the right way or not or at least not produce the desired result, so it's really about avoiding hiring people who are totally careless and are going to make the MAJOR mistakes. Like totally screw up a project from start to finish and cost the clients tens of thousands.
In terms of the quality of two relatively competent employees, it can really be a matter of opinion of who is doing the judging and what yardstick you're using.
And I have no problem saying that I know people in extremely high positions, some of whom I somewhat like, who have made major oversights. Sometimes, nobody even notices.
It's just a controlled environment versus a chaotic one.
Q: What do you call the guy who graduated last in his medical school class?
A: Doctor.
From peronal experieince, it's much easier to be a doctor than to become one. Three of the four yrs of med school are an experience in practical apprenticeship with minimal, if any, didactic classroom teaching.
In general, GPA and even a bachelor degree itself is more indicative of one's ability to learn and of their sense of responsibiity & perseverance than evidence of what they've learned. Very little of formal undergrad educational material is used in real world work.
Q: What do you call the guy who graduated last in his medical school class?
A: Doctor.
From peronal experieince, it's much easier to be a doctor than to become one. Three of the four yrs of med school are an experience in practical apprenticeship with minimal, if any, didactic classroom teaching.
In general, GPA and even a bachelor degree itself is more indicative of one's ability to learn and of their sense of responsibiity & perseverance than evidence of what they've learned. Very little of formal undergrad educational material is used in real world work.
I think once you have already finished training and are a board certified surgeon, all the weeding out that needs to be done is complete. You’re simply not going to make it that far if you don’t have enough knowledge of the basics. Quite frankly, if a surgeon has done the procedure successfully 300 times over the past two decades, that matters more to me than whether he took the easy classes in school or got Bs. Being an A student while taking hard classes doesn’t ensure that you have steady hands or can put what you’ve learned into practice. A good surgeon is also not going to be afraid to say “I think this approach could work for you, but I’m going to refer you to my colleague Dr. Smith for that because it’s not one I regularly perform.”
I think once you have already finished training and are a board certified surgeon, all the weeding out that needs to be done is complete. You’re simply not going to make it that far if you don’t have enough knowledge of the basics. Quite frankly, if a surgeon has done the procedure successfully 300 times over the past two decades, that matters more to me than whether he took the easy classes in school or got Bs. Being an A student while taking hard classes doesn’t ensure that you have steady hands or can put what you’ve learned into practice. A good surgeon is also not going to be afraid to say “I think this approach could work for you, but I’m going to refer you to my colleague Dr. Smith for that because it’s not one I regularly perform.”
I suspect that anyone who took "easy" classes wouldn't have made it into med school to start with. That's one reason for the early "weed out" classes in many/most technical/professional degrees.
Quote:
Originally Posted by guidoLaMoto
Q: What do you call the guy who graduated last in his medical school class?
A: Doctor.
From peronal experieince, it's much easier to be a doctor than to become one. Three of the four yrs of med school are an experience in practical apprenticeship with minimal, if any, didactic classroom teaching.
In general, GPA and even a bachelor degree itself is more indicative of one's ability to learn and of their sense of responsibiity & perseverance than evidence of what they've learned. Very little of formal undergrad educational material is used in real world work.
A lot of folks say this, but is that perhaps more relevant to liberal arts/gen ed classes? I know this is just one example, but I've used what I learned in my degree program constantly over my whole career. If not specifically, then indirectly in being able to learn and perform my job. In contrast however, very little, if any, of my liberal arts/gen ed classes were useful beyond what it took to pass the course. As I learned later in life, much of it was either incomplete or just professor opinion rather than useful information. Indeed, in some cases I'd consider it negative learning that I had to unlearn (think of the various papers written in college) to succeed at work.
Consider -- what if we put the responsibility for gen eds on high school and kids who succeeded at them (exam, A levels, whatever) could finish college in three years instead of four. In some ways that's happening with dual enrollment, but it's inconsistent across the country. Think of how much money would be saved if we cut gen eds from the college curriculum.
I suspect that anyone who took "easy" classes wouldn't have made it into med school to start with. That's one reason for the early "weed out" classes in many/most technical/professional degrees.
There was a kid who bullied me who had the easy AP Bio teacher that I kept mentioning, who gave everybody an A (while the teacher I had gave basically nobody an A). For 3 years he made fun of me that he'll get into better colleges than me and will get into med school, since colleges don't know what teacher you have, only your grade. And he kept telling me that he's really bad at math, but, being able to just take an easy A in bio without any work or studying at all, that frees up extra time so that he can spend all of his time studying math. So all colleges will see are A's in both bio and math. And he was right. He got into an Ivy League school (I didn't). And he's now a doctor.
There was a kid who bullied me who had the easy AP Bio teacher that I kept mentioning, who gave everybody an A (while the teacher I had gave basically nobody an A). For 3 years he made fun of me that he'll get into better colleges than me and will get into med school, since colleges don't know what teacher you have, only your grade. And he kept telling me that he's really bad at math, but, being able to just take an easy A in bio without any work or studying at all, that frees up extra time so that he can spend all of his time studying math. So all colleges will see are A's in both bio and math. And he was right. He got into an Ivy League school (I didn't). And he's now a doctor.
Ok. So he must have been smart enough to pass Organic in college. High school grades really don't matter at that point.
Ok. So he must have been smart enough to pass Organic in college. High school grades really don't matter at that point.
I also think that it is important to point out that just because a teacher is “easy” doesn’t mean that students don’t learn. It may actually be possible that students in the easier classes learn more because the teacher is able to present the material in a way that is easily understood to more of the class. I remember when I was in college, certain teachers were “easy” but part of that was because they made the material engaging and relevant so that the students actually WANTED to learn the material better.
In this person’s case, it sounds like he learned plenty if he was able to go to med school.
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