Medical ethics debates don't just involve abortion pills or assisted suicide. Here at the University, we are neither isolated nor immune from an important medical issue of our own: Pre-medicine has degenerated into a competition. It's about competing for medical schools, it's about competing for grades -- and it needs to stop.
Since the University has no pre-med major, there is only a recommended program of studies based on the requirements of most medical schools. Those requirements include classes like organic chemistry and calculus. Classes like these are hard enough just to pronounce, but because of the way the Chemistry Department has structured them, they're made even harder by pitting students against each other.
The students in organic chemistry lab are ranked for each assignment. Grades are later assigned based on one's rank relative to others in that section. During the final exam, after first being given different tests, the instructor and the TAs watch the students like hawks. It's ridiculous that the honor system is not even given a chance. Everyone is suspect.
The Chemistry Department argues that these measures are necessary because students will cheat. Students will cheat? Why does the competition for a grade in organic chemistry compel a University student to throw honor out the window?
Well, it's the same reason there's a line to sign up for the Madison House Medical Services. The competition for a med-school acceptance letter overcomes a student's common sense.
Madison House is full of programs that are in need of student volunteers. These programs don't require much more than a little enthusiasm on the part of the student; but in what has been called a "tradition at the University" pre-meds always line up for the Medical Services program, many camping out the night before.
This is not volunteering, this is resume building. This tradition is a disappointing example of the lengths many pre-meds take to gain an advantage over their peers. Few, if any, of these students weren't looking to boost a future med-school application or two.
Why is that?
The medical profession is one of the oldest and arguably noblest careers students can strive for. Perhaps it's the reason why there are approximately 600 students enrolled in introductory chemistry classes -- the vast majority of whom are pre-med.
But along the way, this road to a medical degree has become a contest. This competition goes against the very principles of what makes medicine, medicine.
Medicine is about helping others. It's not about stepping on fellow classmates, and using their mistakes for personal advantage and gain.
Students, and unfortunately some faculty easily overlook this basic idea as well.
There are no study groups in pre-med classes. The Chemistry Department, which offers the majority of the pre-med classes, doesn't encourage students to work together. It's a sort of filtration process in these introductory chemistry courses, to separate students willing to pursue the work required for a medical degree from those who have a hard time out growing an elementary school dream. What the Chemistry Department needs to realize is that by forcing students to work alone, and by encouraging competition among classmates, they are detracting from a students' college experience.
A college education should not be spent hoping the worst for one's neighbor. Students come to college to pursue the same goals and to overcome the same obstacles necessary to earn a degree. In that struggle we must be teammates, not opponents.
Group work is a very beneficial method of studying, especially in pre-med classes, where topics are difficult and students can easily become stuck on a problem. There's no reason why at an institution like the University students should be discouraged from working together. We are all smart people, motivated by a strong work ethic. It's the job of the faculty to encourage students to learn the subject material to the best of their ability.
The method the Chemistry Department has chosen to go about teaching is wrong. They aren't encouraging students to learn the material; they've only encouraged students to learn more than their neighbor, which is a very different studying mentality.
As for the pre-meds: You are all in this together, you're all striving for the same goal. You can look at it as a competition for the same door prize, in which case you'll miss the whole point of your dream; or you can look at it as a voyage you are making with other students with similar aspirations. Along the way they will slip and need a hand. But along they way you too will slip and need a hand.
Right now, why isn't one available?
(Luke Ryan is a Cavalier Daily viewpoint writer.)
Read More
PARTING SHOT: No man is an island
By Ava MacBlane | 2 days agoRetirement, as you can tell, has been treating me well. When people ask me now if I miss it, I laugh and tell them some things I definitely don't miss. But I don't always get to tell them about the things I really do miss.
PARTING SHOT: You never know unless you try
By Lexi Baker | 3 days agoMy time at the University was shaped by the people who showed me grace and kindness and by those who had confidence in me, even when I struggled to have it in myself.
PARTING SHOT: A love letter to Cav Daily and Connection
By Ava Proehl | 3 days agoMy time here taught me to look for the genuine, human connection in every moment.
