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I took a ton of science courses in college including O chem. Personally I enjoyed it --it was like doing logic problems rather than strictly memorization. It made sense to me. Perhaps that’s why it’s needed for med school–critical thinking so used as a “weeder” class. And I did use it in practice.
But my general chemistry class (one of my first college classes) was taught by a very hard professor. Good thing we didn’t have “rate my professor” back then. I literally hated that class. But what I finally realized was that I needed to “learn to learn”. I needed that grade badly but it was on me to tackle it. No do-overs, excuses, extra credit was coming my way.
So after messing up the first exam and despairing a bit (we only had two exams for a final grade)–I regrouped. I tackled the entire chem text from page one, did every problem, read every page. I was the first person in the class who finished the final (and then wondered if I’d totally missed the mark–it couldn’t be THAT easy?). Got an “A”. Never again did I rely on professors to “teach”–they were a guide but spoon feeding wasn’t an option.
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They certainly can, but taking courses away from your “home institution” may impact your chances of admission to med schools. A GE course probably not, but taking Orgo, or Bio Chem, etc., I’d bet it does. Med school admission committees will know this.
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No problem whatsoever in Germany switching to a more science or engineering oriented track in 8th or 9th grade, if you want to. None whatsoever.
Unless your mom doesn’t want you to, but then the mom’s the problem, and would have been in any system.
Though he wouldn’t have gotten out of distribution requirements even then, just as he wouldn’t have at any US high school if he had been a regular student who wanted to graduate. And in the US he would have encountered distribution requirements even in college, or at least in most of them.
However, in most any country in the rest of the world, he could have gone to med school at age 18, and the med school would have taught the classes he needed to become a doctor. Outsourcing this to colleges carries a high risk of those equity problems.
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From my vantage point and probably from some of the other physicians who have participated with comments in this thread, Einstein receiving a 3 in HS French was probably no more relevant to his future career as a physicist than a college student receiving a C in organic chemistry to his future career as a physician.
There’s been a lot of talk recently about the idea of weed-out courses. I wonder what you think about that term.
“I hate it because it implies intent. We have no intent to weed people out. Absolutely not. The other side of that is you really do want a success in the professions coming down the line for these people. You really do want competency. You want doctors who are really good, and you want engineers who can build a bridge that’s going to stand up. And you want scientists who can — cliché alert — push the frontier. At Princeton or NYU, every single student in that class was capable of success. Maybe not of a 92, but of success.”
I find it arrogant that a person who has never worked as a physician (and treated patients for many years) would begin to presume to know what qualities are essential for being “competent.”
As I get older, I have become more of a consumer. I don’t want an “Albert Einstein” to be my physician- a super genius, who will treat me merely as a complex problem to be solved. Human beings are infinitely more complex and needier than that. Instead, the following qualities are what are most important to me. I want a physician who cares about his patients and his job. He needs to be able to connect with them and gain their trust. He needs to be a very good listener and to understand that not every problem has a solution. Demonstrating personal warmth and empathy are often more important than having any answer at all. Obviously, he needs to be bright, but he doesn’t have to be the next John von Neumann. He has to be humble and understanding of the limit of his own capabilities. Finally, he has to be honest, practical, and diligent. Those are more much more important qualities than academic credentials and intellectual prowess. The science of medicine isn’t hard to understand. In many ways, the practice of medicine isn’t not really a science at all; it’s more of a craft. It’s the others things associated with the practice that are much more difficult.
Unfortunately, there is no good way to measure those qualities, so I think there is no possible way to improve the system. This is coming from someone who was a successful product of the system. So in the end, I am not disputing that those students who performed poorly in Professor Jones’ class didn’t deserve their grades. He was upfront on how graded his class and they didn’t meet his standard. Instead, I feel empathy for them because some of them could have turned to out be great physicians. Some of them could have turned out to be better doctors than their counterparts who actually received an A. Let’s not use that 1 failure to disparage them and claim they weren’t cut out for the field.
It’s just my opinion, and I am fine if other people feel differently.
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I’m not a physician so I wouldn’t presume to know how much, if any, organic chemistry is needed to be a physician. I suspect, however, that the answer may vary, as we’ve seen in this thread, depending on the kind of work a particular physician or medical researcher does.
I’m typically not satisfied if I’m told what I should do but not why I should do so. Whenever I encountered some medical or health-related issues that I wanted a fuller explanation than what I received, I often went to one of my closest personal physician friends for answers. I’m fairly scientifically inquisitive and he almost never failed to satisfy my curiosity. I wouldn’t think he’d be able to do this had he not been knowledgeable about the underlying sciences.
About the weed-out courses, I’d think they’re a necessity when there’re more candidates than available spaces in medical schools. Is there a better way to do this? Perhaps, but there’s clearly no consensus if this thread is any indication.
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IMO, weed out courses become weed out organically. 
In the UK, it is my understanding that the weed-out course for physicians is math. Not clear that helps select for people with social skills or EQ.
Interesting that Jones doesn’t seem to understand the difference between in-house student evaluations (which are not “another social-media opportunity to vent”) vs. social media reviews on sites such like Rate My Professors.
But I’m not surprised that Jones, who reportedly received the worst evaluations of any science professor at NYU, doesn’t believe they should even be considered:
I would no longer lean on or pay much attention to, frankly, student evaluations.
His dismissal of student feedback is all the more ironic given his “advice” to the students about the importance of being “self-critical.” From the original article in the OP:
James W. Canary, chairman of the department until about a year ago, said he admired Dr. Jones’s course content and pedagogy, but felt that his communication with students was skeletal and sometimes perceived as harsh.
“He hasn’t changed his style or methods in a good many years,” Dr. Canary said. “The students have changed, though, and they were asking for and expecting more support from the faculty when they’re struggling.”
This varies with the complexity of the case. I personally want Einstein who can help me not just someone to hold my hand while I wither away.
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Clinical medicine is not the same, and it is definitely not as intellectually rigorous as quantum physics.
I would wager that a quantum physicist would become bored or frustrated practicing medicine because it is chaotic, messy, and sometimes very illogical. Physicians also have to work with people of different backgrounds, intellects, personalities, and agendas. And that can get very tricky. A lot of medicine is about assessing risks and uncertainties rather than establishing diagnoses because our ability to diagnose is actually very primitive.
This may be controversial, but look at what happened to Dr. Anthony Fauci, who is acknowledged to be one of medicine’s pre-eminent researchers and clinicians of our era, when he tried to counsel the American public about the COVID-19 virus. His immense intellect wasn’t enough to ensure success discussing a topic with moving targets and incomplete scientific information.
You seem to be focused on the importance of “brain power” in clinical medicine. It really isn’t the most important attribute for the field. In terms of diagnosing tough cases, communication skills, listening skills, thoroughness, tenacity, and. wisdom are easily just as important.
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Student evaluations are expressly not part of the tenure review process at Princeton. Some students put a lot of weight on them, but the school does not. Jones’ view probably was formed there.
Dr. Fauci is also a great and certainly empathetic communicator, and possesses all the skills listed. IMO, his problem, which is shared by his counterparts in all other countries without exception, is that the public wants definitive answers and instructions when such things are impossible with our current state of knowledge.
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I completely agree with your assessment. But this is the same dilemma clinicians face when they deal with patients with unexplainable problems. It is hard to explain uncertainties. Because medicine is an inexact science, it is easy for a lay person like Senator Paul Rand or President Donald Trump
to feel more knowledgeable than Dr. Fauci.
It is also easy for your next patient in your practice to feel they understand more about medical issues than you do because they researched the internet.
These situations would never happen in a hard science like chemistry or physics.
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If you are correct and his views were formed 15 years prior at another university where his responsibilities extended beyond just teaching, then that seems to be further evidence of his inability to adapt to changing circumstances.
He just doesn’t doesn’t seem to have been at all amenable to taking feedback or altering his approach. He wouldn’t even discuss the possibility teaching only the Chem Majors.
Rand Paul is a physician 
Wasn’t there a Big Bang Theory episode or two on Sheldon give up studying string theory, because it’s pseudoscience not hard science? 
(Yes, my knowledge of science is limited to the Big Bang Theory TV show)
To me, all science is hard…
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I know. He is a non-practicing ophthalmologist who lacks any training in infectious diseases or public health medicine. A similar analogy would be a retired psychiatrist telling Michael DeBakey he is performing his heart surgeries incorrectly.
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Doctor Rand Paul. But this isn’t a political thread.
And I do understand you need someone who listens to the patient closely but I’m not signing up for the PA appointment when I have major heart problems. No thanks.