Group projects

[ratman7]

Does a med student's life and residency and career involve doing group projects/tasks with incompetent group members?

I don't mind working in a group as long as everyone participates but hate it when others' incompetence costs me.

Story:

Last semester in orgo lab, we had a lab with a lab partner. My partner was completely useless and literally just sat there while I did everything (from the reaction to the analysis and write up). At the end, I told my partner to return the materials and store the chemical solution from the reaction, and went off to get the lab professor to ask a question. When I got back, I found out that my incompetent lab partner had dumped our chemical solution while cleaning the desk. The lab professor stopped by and gave us BOTH a 0, because of HIS incompetence. I mean, his only task the entire lab was to clean up and save the material, but he decides to dump it out. The class was graded on a curve, so the 0 brought me down (from an A) to a B-. Because of him, my grade went down for the class.

This is why I despise working with incompetent group members, especially when there is something of importance to get done. With a good group I don't expect this to be the case, but in your experiences, does the future (for a premed/doctor) involve mostly capable or incapable group members?

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[claduva94]

I think it is hard to make that generalization. But I will say medicine is a team effort and you had better be able to deal with it regardless of who you are working with.

 

[Bottle]

Hold on, how did you accept that 0? Did you talk to the professor and explain what happened? Tell him/her that you plan to attend grad school and that GPA is very important to you. Your professor should understand and give you credit, or at least give you half credit.

 

[Pierre Escargot]

I have yet to begin but I have a hard time thinking you'll come across anybody that absurd, if that's any consolation.

Hold on, how did you accept that 0? Did you talk to the professor and explain what happened? Tell him/her that you plan to attend grad school and that GPA is very important to you. Your professor should understand and give you credit, or at least give you half credit.

Definitely would've spoken to him/her as well.

 

[intangible]

I'm the classroom pain-in-the-ass that CC's the professor on any relevant information regarding a group assignment. It happened to me this semester in a Genetics course I took. Turns out, one of our group members didn't even bother to complete the midterm practicum for the lab and unofficially "dropped" it, leaving the rest of us high and dry. My other two teammates were basically inanimate objects.

I got an A on the presentation and was given extra credit for being the best in the lab. Better believe I had these lab mates rehearse their part of the project incessantly until they got it right.

 

[FFH]

Does a med student's life and residency and career involve doing group projects/tasks with incompetent group members?

I don't mind working in a group as long as everyone participates but hate it when others' incompetence costs me.

Story:

Last semester in orgo lab, we had a lab with a lab partner. My partner was completely useless and literally just sat there while I did everything (from the reaction to the analysis and write up). At the end, I told my partner to return the materials and store the chemical solution from the reaction, and went off to get the lab professor to ask a question. When I got back, I found out that my incompetent lab partner had dumped our chemical solution while cleaning the desk. The lab professor stopped by and gave us BOTH a 0, because of HIS incompetence. I mean, his only task the entire lab was to clean up and save the material, but he decides to dump it out. The class was graded on a curve, so the 0 brought me down (from an A) to a B-. Because of him, my grade went down for the class.

This is why I despise working with incompetent group members, especially when there is something of importance to get done. With a good group I don't expect this to be the case, but in your experiences, does the future (for a premed/doctor) involve mostly capable or incapable group members?

Man, that's terrible, I'm sorry. I cannot imagine how devastated I would be if I get a B- in a 3 to 4 credits science class when I was expecting A.

Maybe he's just not very good with things in the lab and the reason he was being inanimate is because he didn't want to get in your way and that he trusted you. I have been in the role of teaching people who are new to research for many years and I definitely have seen people who are otherwise brilliant turning comatose once you ask them to do something on the bench. Maybe next time be more inspiring and ask your lab mate to help you with small things before asking him to do something really important. Reviews the steps that he suppose to do (like the time out before a surgery) might help preventing misunderstandings. "Okay John, would you mind help us clean up and save the products? And would you mind tell me which to dump and which to save just so that we can make sure we both understand it correctly?"

I also find that so often in college, we had to defend for our grades. Finding out the best person to talk to, at the best time (when they are not busy and preferably after a meal in the afternoon since study shows that people are more lenient when their blood sugar is high and most collaborative around the 2-3pm), and knowing how to approach the issue respectively and aggressive are some of the most useful surviving skills that I horned in my education.

 

[TheBatman]

hmmm not sure what field you're interested but in medicine there is definitely tons of team work involved.

 

[ratman7]

Yes, I know doctors rely of teamwork a lot, and I am very OK with that, as long as my team does not super-procrastinate or be useless.
To address the other posters, yes, I talked with the lab professor and he told me that "save your chemicals" was explicitly written on the top of the lab report sheet, and said there is nothing he can do about it. I told him that it wasn't even me who threw out the solution, but he did not listen and told me to be more responsible with our work. (which I was furious about because my lab partner deserved the 0 and not me)

 

[FFH]

Yes, I know doctors rely of teamwork a lot, and I am very OK with that, as long as my team does not super-procrastinate or be useless.
To address the other posters, yes, I talked with the lab professor and he told me that "save your chemicals" was explicitly written on the top of the lab report sheet, and said there is nothing he can do about it. I told him that it wasn't even me who threw out the solution, but he did not listen and told me to be more responsible with our work. (which I was furious about because my lab partner deserved the 0 and not me)

You might have to get the department involved via your student advising dean

 

[Catalystik]

Does a med student's life and residency and career involve doing group projects/tasks with incompetent group members?

Yep.

 

[agilevin]

I sympathize with your loss, grade-wise, but I think it is also worth noting that the whole idea behind group projects is to have students lear to work together effectively, and teach and learn from one another; the end product is not necessarily very important in itself. If you did all the work, even if it was flawless, you didn't really help your lab mate. If he was so clueless at the end, he did not learn much. Of course, much of that is his/her own fault, but you were at fault too if you didn't make sure he's at least following along, understands what is going on and develops some minimal skills from the project you two were supposed to do together. You enabled him/her to disengage from work, instead of helping him/her stay on track. This is an important skill in school, medschool, and life. In the end, how are you going to teach, say, your possibly illiterate and barely interested patients manage their diabetes? Or work with a team of nurses, social workers, other physicians, etc, with various degrees of motivation, to handle a complex case?