Posted on 10/07/2022 2:42:29 PM PDT by Twotone
New York University fired Maitland Jones Jr. because his organic chemistry course was “too hard.” The man wrote the textbook on the subject, now in its fifth edition, and had been a star teacher at Princeton. He went out of his way to tape his lectures, at his own cost, to mitigate some of the attendance problems attributed to the pandemic.
Yet students revolted because they feared, according to the New York Times, that “they were not given the grades that would allow them to get into medical school.”
The professor, meanwhile, saw a different problem: “They weren’t coming to class. … They weren’t watching the videos, and they weren’t able to answer the questions.” But the school terminated his employment rather than the students, who are on track to become physicians despite struggling to get into med school.
Every American should be worried because this kind of standard-lowering is becoming commonplace in medical school.
Organic chemistry is a very difficult subject. Doing well in the course in college has been a litmus test for medical-school suitability. It demands discipline, ability to think in three dimensions, memorizing complex structures, managing a series of chemical rules and solving intricate problems. Its intellectual demands and need for disciplined study are surrogates for the discipline and problem-solving physicians must demonstrate throughout their careers.
Jones could not be more correct in his judgment that his organic chemistry course should be tough. Entry into medical school these days is almost a guarantee that a student will one day have a medical degree and a license to practice medicine. Even struggling students are coached through to graduation. I know this as I was the associate dean for curriculum at Penn’s medical school.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
That’s some nurse! Like the pic on the left
With Joe, Genesis needs an updated version of “Land of Confusion” - especially after today
Doesn’t really matter. The docs have to obey the CDC commandments. or go to jail.
I thought the tongue depressor was to look at the tonsils. I have a thermometer, pulse oximeter, a BP cuff device, some bandaids, antiseptic liquids and ointments, and a roll of bandage wrap. The rest I leave to the butchers and mechanics.
Some EE frat broz built a stereo “color organ” to attach to their stereo system.
Maybe five or six frequency bands per stereo channel.
I had some kind of military surplus circular ‘scope inherited from some graduated bro hooked up to my stereo.
Something like a Dumont 304a:
https://www.syscompdesign.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/scope-history.pdf
(the American health care system collapsing)
Also known as “Obamacare”
As long as they sign their student loans over to the university they get As because shut up.
Thanks - forgot about the double bonds
One tough cookie as I recall (the benzene ring)
I started sweating when I looked up the picture...
I had two tough semester-long Organic Chemistry courses at MIT. The first was taught by a real hero (Dr. John Sheehan, who developed synthetic penicillins). He taught mechanistic organic chemistry. That allowed one to learn the subject by mechanisms and logic, not just rote memorization.
The second course was taught by his best friend in the department. The exams were VERY tough!! But I used the mechanistic approach that I learned from Sheehan, and got the highest grade in the class!!!!
It was VERY wrong for NYU to fire Dr. Jones!! Organic Chemistry should be hard, but needs to be taught via a mechanistic approach. The pre-meds have been spoiling things for the chem and bio majors!!!! Besides that, didn’t Dr. Jones do research as well as teaching, and mentor grad students? NYU will lose these contributions, too, thanks to some lazy and substandard pre-meds!!! Not good!!!!
I’ve seen that trend ever since they introduced the computer engineering curriculum. (Not blaming the computer engineering discipline per say but in coincides!) EE departments (STEM departments in general) are desperate to cut costs. Physical lab courses where there’s circuits, basic equipment, etc. is very expensive to maintain. Not only do you have to have a budget for worn out parts\equipment you also have to have money to keep equipment calibrated often that means sending it out. You also have to keep a tech on staff to do the basic maintenance and manage it all. EE departments because of this cost are convincing themselves across the academic fruited plain that they can do all the basic EE labs in simulation. They’ve convinced themselves there will be no loss in education merit. They are wrong! However, that’s the trend and the honest prof will admit it openly, others will deny until a few beers are drank. Some will continue to deny!
When I went to U of Chicago, the O-Chem prof, Dr. Light, was infamous for flunking most of the class. Some took it again and passed. Others excelled. A whole lot realized they didn’t have the chops to be a U of C grad medical doctor.
I assume you mean by mechanistic look for patterns. The patterns tell you want to do. Ok, not a chemist here, my daughter is and did very well in organic chemistry. She’s a physical chemist prefers it more mathematical!
Since Engineering Chemistry I always pump my gas upwind lol
Though my professor brought up grilling burgers with fat over open flame...
I’m like c’mon man!!!
Tough class and he was always hitting us - final was open book and TOUGH
Got an A thanks to my now-deceased friend who showed me how to study for it.
Kudos on the A, sorry about your buddy.
Oh boy! It looks like I took racist, sexist, homophobic, and transphobic Organic Chemistry, and got the highest grades in it!!!!
It’s amazing that the guy who taught this unwoke Organic Chemistry developed synthetic penicillins, which led to most of the other antibiotics we have today.
Perhaps of we had woke Organic Chemistry and woke faculty and students back in the day, we would have no effective antibiotics. Then millions of people who are alive today (and their parents and grandparents) would have DIED!!!!
It’s time to make our universities great again!!!! Fire all the Diversity administrators, and get back to excellence!!!!
The first thing nurses now do when entering “the surgery” these days is slip on a pulse-ox and still get a bp.
No looking down the throat anymore [I haven’t had tonsils for decades and decades....].
It’s a change of protocol. Especially for those of us who may have skipped a few decades of physicals while in our middle-age “prime”.
The two disciplines I tried most strenuously to avoid 🤣. ‘90 to ‘98, Bachelor & Master’s in civil
I liked EE better, and it just made more sense to me.
Oddly enough, I wound up switching after learning about Nikola Tesla.
We were never taught about him, and then I watched movies and read books on him.
So, I wound up changing majors.
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