Quality of lectures

[Medstudent4385]

Hey everyone, I just wanted to get some opinions on what people think about the quality of lectures at their school. I'm a 2nd year and I really feel like the lecture quality at my school is tanking. Professors are contradicting each other and even contradicting themselves. For example, a basic science professor will say that XYZ is the cause of a disease and then two lectures later, a clinical professor will say that XYZ was once thought to cause the disease but studies have shown that it doesn't. I regularly get exam questions wrong because professor A will write a question and - not knowing who wrote the question - I will answer it based on what professor B taught and get the question wrong. There seems to be no organization to what we're being taught, and I just generally feel that the quality of our lectures is very low. All of my classmates that I've talked to feel the same way. We've tried to give feedback but the administration doesn't seem to care. It's getting very frustrating to say the least. Is this a normal, rite of passage sort of thing that happens at most med schools? Or is our school an outlier? Thanks in advance for any advice.

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[user3]

What school is this?

 

[67552931811]

.

 

[DrKershaw]

It's normal. Start using more supplemental materials (First Aid, BRS, Google) to clarify discrepancies and correct professors (respectfully and not in front of the class) when necessary. (Better yet, discuss, not correct.)

As much as we would like to think our professors know everything, it's important to know that they are people too and they can just as easily make mistakes (I know, I know, even if it is at the expense of our inconceivably costly medical education). Unless you're a student at Hopkins, HMS or UCSF, etc. I would expect there to be discrepancies, disparities and unintentional misinformation from any and all professors you may meet.

 

[SnowDoggy44]

It's normal. Start using more supplemental materials (First Aid, BRS, Google) to clarify discrepancies and correct professors (respectfully and not in front of the class) when necessary. (Better yet, discuss, not correct.)

As much as we would like to think our professors know everything, it's important to know that they are people too and they can just as easily make mistakes (I know, I know, even if it is at the expense of our inconceivably costly medical education). Unless you're a student at Hopkins, HMS or UCSF, etc. I would expect there to be discrepancies, disparities and unintentional misinformation from any and all professors you may meet.

Why would Hopkins, HMS, UCSF be any exception?

 

[costales]

Yeah, there are many diseases where current evidence supporting a causal link is weak, but do you know the correct answer for boards? What does your textbook say?

 

[DrKershaw]

Why would Hopkins, HMS, UCSF be any exception?

Because I'd expect perfection and would hold my professors to a much higher standard than I would anywhere else. It comes with the territory of being among the best medical schools in the world.

Yeah, there are many diseases where current evidence supporting a causal link is weak, but do you know the correct answer for boards? What does your textbook say?

^ Yea, this is all that really matters. Most professors use the textbooks to clarify questions anyway.

 

[Petypet]

Because I'd expect perfection and would hold my professors to a much higher standard than I would anywhere else. It comes with the territory of being among the best medical schools in the world.

Except 95% of professors are there to do research and not teach. They teach because its in their contract and in a lot of cases being a quality researcher does not translate to being a good teacher, or vice versa.

 

[Mehd School]

Because I'd expect perfection and would hold my professors to a much higher standard than I would anywhere else. It comes with the territory of being among the best medical schools in the world.

Eh, we're all learning the same stuff man. I just used a buddy of mine's study guide for a genetics test and he's at a top 5 school. Same stuff.

And lecturers at my school can be hit or miss, but so far I'd say they're probably right at average to maybe a little above. Some ready just from the slides, others read nothing from the slides and put slide information into more concise verbal sentences that help you wrap your head around it. But none of them are dicks (except for one....) and they're all really helpful outside of class.

 

[midweststudent1]

Most professors at my school seem to care a lot more about teaching than research. This equals pretty great lectures 90% of the time. They stay current on the literature and it translates in their teaching

 

[dermpathdoc]

Yeah, there are many diseases where current evidence supporting a causal link is weak, but do you know the correct answer for boards? What does your textbook say?

depends on the age of the book....Robbins Pathology for example just came out with a new edition. Last year unless I used Harrison Medicine to double check facts I was I. Danger of perpetuating 10 year old data in my systems lectures.

 

[hallowmann]

depends on the age of the book....Robbins Pathology for example just came out with a new edition. Last year unless I used Harrison Medicine to double check facts I was I. Danger of perpetuating 10 year old data in my systems lectures.

This is the thing. It's expected for there to be some lag in the process. Medicine constantly changes and each day we learn more and more, so its not that surprising for lecturers to clash with clinicians that clash with researchers/administrators of health standards. You don't know how many times I've heard clinicians say, well they just changed standard of care to such but before that we did such (is a daily occurrence).

Focus on what you need to know for boards at this point. If it starts messing with your grades, talk to your professors and reference it, they might end up double keying the answer or something.

Medicine is fluid, and we should really get used to that. We're the ones that will have to stay up-to-date with CMEs and recertification exams.

 

[razor]

Do we run a higher risk of having incompetent professors at DO schools? At my school, our clinical medicine professor demonstrates physical exam skills and looks like he's never done them before as he stumbles through them. The other day he butchered a neuro exam and then tried to correct himself by telling us tongue movements were CN9 and 10 and that CN12 was trapezius. Then he always feeds us bogus information. We were discussing a case in class about a patient coming in with vertebral frx and receiving a new diagnosis of osteoporosis. He told us that you would NOT start them on bisphosphonates and just see how they do on Ca and VitD first.

Pretty scary that these people are out there as "the front lines" of medicine treating people in my community AND teaching the next generation of osteopathic physicians!

Don't get me wrong, we have plenty of awesome and brilliant faculty, but I can't imagine things like this would fly at your average MD school.

 

[Poliscidoc]

Some lectures suck and some are great... Stop worrying about that and open and book and read if you're lost and cant follow along...

We have lectures that contradict one another and if it comes up in a test we get that question back= problem solved/crisis averted

 

[razor]

Some lectures suck and some are great... Stop worrying about that and open and book and read if you're lost and cant follow along...

We have lectures that contradict one another and if it comes up in a test we get that question back= problem solved/crisis averted

cool story, hansel

 

[hallowmann]

Do we run a higher risk of having incompetent professors at DO schools? At my school, our clinical medicine professor demonstrates physical exam skills and looks like he's never done them before as he stumbles through them. The other day he butchered a neuro exam and then tried to correct himself by telling us tongue movements were CN9 and 10 and that CN12 was trapezius. Then he always feeds us bogus information. We were discussing a case in class about a patient coming in with vertebral frx and receiving a new diagnosis of osteoporosis. He told us that you would NOT start them on bisphosphonates and just see how they do on Ca and VitD first.

Pretty scary that these people are out there as "the front lines" of medicine treating people in my community AND teaching the next generation of osteopathic physicians!

Don't get me wrong, we have plenty of awesome and brilliant faculty, but I can't imagine things like this would fly at your average MD school.

I have never had such an experience in clinical classes. I don't really have lectures in PBL though. When we were taught neuro exams we had a neurologist come in and lecture us about it and practical applications of it. Very knowledgeable and definitely wasn't doing things wrong. For MSK we had physiatrist come in with the same result.

Occasionally, regular lecturers slip up here or there, but they usually either correct it at the time or shortly after, and even then its usually not a huge mistake. This does happen a lot in OPP though...

 

[Medstudent4385]

We have lectures that contradict one another and if it comes up in a test we get that question back= problem solved/crisis averted

We rarely get questions back that contradict what was taught by a different professor. In addition, they don't let us cite any outside sources when trying to argue questions. I've gotten exam questions wrong because of what I learned on UpToDate and I'm SOL in trying to argue them. I just can't win.

This does happen a lot in OPP though...

Oh god, don't even get me started about OPP...

I appreciate all the responses. Sounds like what's going on at my school isn't totally out of the ordinary.

 

[Poliscidoc]

We rarely get questions back that contradict what was taught by a different professor. In addition, they don't let us cite any outside sources when trying to argue questions. I've gotten exam questions wrong because of what I learned on UpToDate and I'm SOL in trying to argue them. I just can't win.

Oh god, don't even get me started about OPP...

I appreciate all the responses. Sounds like what's going on at my school isn't totally out of the ordinary.

Not getting questions back is bogus but we get questions back in OMM all the time if they are wrong or two right answers. But you also can loose points if they miss keyed which sucks!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk ignore spelling and/or grammar

 

[NontradCA]

Except 95% of professors are there to do research and not teach. They teach because its in their contract and in a lot of cases being a quality researcher does not translate to being a good teacher, or vice versa.

Or they have tenure and don't care.

 

[midweststudent1]

Or they have tenure and don't care.

My school doesn't have tenure. Do most osteopathic med schools have tenure or not have tenure?

 

[costales]

State schools have tenure. Private schools probably use renewable contracts.

 

[user3]

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[MetalloBetalactamase]

I have a few professors who are very poorly organized. The worst are in OMM. One won't shut up and can speak for three hours straight while imbuing our gluteals with "tenderpoints", and another, apparently revels in acts of off duty animal cruelty. The science teachers here, on the other hand, are well organized and current. They teach with the boards in mind, but don't teach the test.

 

[wjs010]

Whenever there is a discrepancy at my school( rarely) the professors make sure to tell us to refer to the textbook from which they all write q's. They make sure it comes from the text when they write .