Professor fired for being too tough (the ACT, pay, principal, master's)
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I don't see much of a difference. Maybe I'm missing your point?
The point is that it is a self-limiting process. There are a lot of prerequisites and college is expensive. If your option is graduating on time with a STEM major or spending an extra semester/summer/year to do a major you might like more along with the preferred major, most will go with the former. You seem to make the assumption that the choice is because people can’t do well on the MCAT/prereqs without the STEM major.
Anecdotally, I’ve actually read the opposite- that if you can do a non-STEM major and handle the prereqs, you might offer something different to a med school class that tends to be attractive. However, those might also be students who may have decided later on they wanted to do med school and went back to school later to get the prereqs.
Years ago I was in college and we had a text that said there are five professions recognized around the world---doctor, dentist, lawyer, accountant, architect. What do they have in common? They take lots of education, failure in the profession can produce disasters, and more.
Doctor Jones came up through the COVID years, so give him a break if he isn't up to par and kills off several times as many patients? Architect Smith designed some beautiful buildings and if ten times as many of them fell as the industry norm, don't be too hard on him because you know. OK so Accountant Brown bankrupted a Fortune 100 company, sending ripples across the global economies but...
Failing people on Organic Chem, if it really separates the wheat from the chaff for would-be doctors, sounds bang on logical to me.
The point is that it is a self-limiting process. There are a lot of prerequisites and college is expensive. If your option is graduating on time with a STEM major or spending an extra semester/summer/year to do a major you might like more along with the preferred major, most will go with the former. You seem to make the assumption that the choice is because people can’t do well on the MCAT/prereqs without the STEM major.
Anecdotally, I’ve actually read the opposite- that if you can do a non-STEM major and handle the prereqs, you might offer something different to a med school class that tends to be attractive. However, those might also be students who may have decided later on they wanted to do med school and went back to school later to get the prereqs.
1. Given how long any MD/DO path will be I'm all for minimizing time in college. I've made that point many times.
1.1. To be clear some STEM majors pose the same, "lost year" issues as most softer degrees. FE my son was sure he wanted to study bio-medical engineering in college until he found out he'd need to earn the degree and take a bare minimum of one more full semester, most likely two. My daughter did earn a couple of engineering degrees and took another year to complete med. school prerequisites. She laments her lost year greatly.
2. My point about the MCAT is fairly specific, the MCAT tests O-Chem I content and also tests bio-chemistry knowledge, lots of biology and math too. Students who don't have a lot of chemistry and the rest under their belts are less likely to do well on the test.
3. Every medical school accepts 6-10% of it's admits with Letters, Social Sciences etc. degrees who have also completed per school prerequisites.
It's hard for me to see how that's an advantage when 65-70% of admits will have biology and chemistry degrees.
Wrong. They are destined to be coddled in the working world, too. That is, if the employer wants a good ESG score to show their stockholders and any government officials who demand to see them.
Rather, this ex-professor is getting a taste of the Real New World.
I don’t know about you but as a stockholder I’ll take a $1,000,000,000 profit and a -1,000,000,000 ESG score over a 1,000,000,000 ESG score and a -$1,000,000,000 profit any day of the week.
Mixed feelings here.
On one hand, I concur with most others here. Organic Chem is a brutal course. I know from personal experience. Made it through the first part only to get ambushed and poleaxed on the second part. It let me know VERY quickly that medicine was not in my future, and I'm fine with that. These kids have to know that this is never going to be an easy course, and the day that it is, then that probably means that it will only set the kids up for failure as they will not have been well prepared for what is to come with the MCAT.
That being said, I've also borne witness to the fact that there is almost no incentive for college professors to keep up their teaching standards, especially once they make tenure. I vividly remember one professor in college who was absolutely horrific. Students went to the dean who acknowledged that the complaints were valid, but then told them bluntly that this guy had been at the university longer than even he had, so the dean had pretty much no power to force the guy to change anything no matter how bad he was. I struggle to think of any other profession in which you can essentially stop giving a crap and face no repercussions whatsoever. I know that the guy in discussion currently was not tenured but it's definitely an issue in the college world today.
Mixed feelings here.
On one hand, I concur with most others here. Organic Chem is a brutal course. I know from personal experience. Made it through the first part only to get ambushed and poleaxed on the second part. It let me know VERY quickly that medicine was not in my future, and I'm fine with that. These kids have to know that this is never going to be an easy course, and the day that it is, then that probably means that it will only set the kids up for failure as they will not have been well prepared for what is to come with the MCAT.
That being said, I've also borne witness to the fact that there is almost no incentive for college professors to keep up their teaching standards, especially once they make tenure. I vividly remember one professor in college who was absolutely horrific. Students went to the dean who acknowledged that the complaints were valid, but then told them bluntly that this guy had been at the university longer than even he had, so the dean had pretty much no power to force the guy to change anything no matter how bad he was. I struggle to think of any other profession in which you can essentially stop giving a crap and face no repercussions whatsoever. I know that the guy in discussion currently was not tenured but it's definitely an issue in the college world today.
This is one of the mistakes many people make. College professors, in general, aren't hired to be "teachers" but to do research and write papers that bring renown to the college and generate grant funding.
I went to what was, at the time, primarily a "teacher's college" (in fact that had been part of its name until a couple years before I went) and even there many of the instructors teaching people to be teachers were poor instructors.
The instructor (full professor) for Methods of Teaching Social Studies in a Secondary Classroom herself admittedly was only able to last a semester teaching in a high school.
This is one of the mistakes many people make. College professors, in general, aren't hired to be "teachers" but to do research and write papers that bring renown to the college and generate grant funding.
I went to what was, at the time, primarily a "teacher's college" (in fact that had been part of its name until a couple years before I went) and even there many of the instructors teaching people to be teachers were poor instructors.
The instructor (full professor) for Methods of Teaching Social Studies in a Secondary Classroom herself admittedly was only able to last a semester teaching in a high school.
I don't think teaching methodology courses geared to specific academic subjects teach how to cope with chaotic schools and classrooms.
Please, enlighten us on the medical practice areas that don’t require at least a three-year medical residency that typically requires low pay, insane hours, and limited sleep.
I don't think I said that anywhere.
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Part of the purpose of the residency is to expose the new doctor to different situations s/he might encounter in practice. Every doctor might see a patient in an emergency situation or get a call about a patient having an emergency at 2am, waking the doctor from a deep sleep. This does happen with PCPs. A lot of patients may come in to the practice in an emergency situation and needs a doctor who is going to be able to assess quickly whether they can treat the patient or whether they need to go to the ER. They may not even really be able to see the patient and just call the practice nurse who has to talk to a doctor to pass info onto the patient.
I'd rather have a doctor unable to do that than have to wait over a year for a routine physical, have to wait months when sick, and waste several days in the hospital waiting for a test.
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FWIW, many states are trying to address the issue of lack of care by allowing mid-level practitioners more autonomy. In many situations, a PA or NP is easily able to handle more routine visits while the physician can handle the more complex situations.
That seems to be the trend, but it results in being seen by some sorority girl with a nose ring who misdiagnoses people. Would be better off with a real doctor who failed organic chemistry weedout classes.
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I *do* think soft skills are beneficial, as being able to obtain a good patient history and develop a rapport with a patient is often essential in figuring out what the problem is and whether a treatment can be effective.
Then maybe it should be based on things other than organic chemistry weedout classes.
This is one of the mistakes many people make. College professors, in general, aren't hired to be "teachers" but to do research and write papers that bring renown to the college and generate grant funding.
And I'm surprised how many people defend that situation. Given the tuition that students pay, they deserve professors who are fully devoted to teaching. Even if teaching is not their only job, they need to still put their all into it. I can't just blow off parts of my job that I find less interesting.
I'm with this post. Administration has a reference point to compare professors. Organic Chemistry is a weed out course for premed students and the failure rate is high. The question is if his fail rate was much higher than the other professors teaching the same class. Not enough information was provided to come to a logical conclusion.
And more indicative, the professor likely did a poor job at adapting to COVID restrictions and challenges.
More than simply being too difficult, it sounds like he failed to teach them, and possibly had an automated system for grading (online or multiple choice) that didn't update well. If you can't write the exam questions clearly...that's a problem. “Students were misreading exam questions at an astonishing rate,” he wrote in a grievance to the university, protesting his termination. Grades fell even as he reduced the difficulty of his exams. The problem was exacerbated by the pandemic, he said. “In the last two years, they fell off a cliff,” he wrote. “We now see single digit scores and even zeros."
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Originally Posted by EDS_
I don't see much of a difference. Maybe I'm missing your point?
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Originally Posted by EDS_
And very few admits get in with just the prerequisites........I can tell because they breakdown matriculants by major. Not quite 90% have a STEM degree (~50% biology, 20%physical sciences etc.).
You said that very few get in with just the prerequisite coursework. To make that claim, you'd have to compare the admission rate of non-STEM degrees with "just the prerequisites" to STEM degrees. If 90% of matriculants have STEM degrees, and 90% of applicants have STEM degrees, then STEM degrees are admitted at the same rate as non-stem degrees. If 95% of applicants are stem majors, and 5% are humanities majors, but 10% of matriculants are humanities majors, then humanities majors get admitted at a higher rate.
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