Frustrating Teaching Quality

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fuboy1986

fuboy1986

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Hi everyone,
I'm pretty frustrated with the quality of education I'm getting in medical school. Most of my lecturers are researchers who are required to teach classes to keep their jobs. There's no certification requirement (certificate/bachelor's, etc) for teaching classes, either. As a result, nearly all of my professors just walk up to the podium and mumble incoherently about something vaguely related to the syllabus chapter for an hour and then leave. The students do most of our studying from outside resources (textbooks, review books and previous exams) to really get any kind of comprehension of the material.

Have you guys had similar experiences? Coming from a pretty good undergrad program, it's just so frustrating that most of my professors in med school don't teach well. I just don't feel like they add much to my education and it really bothers me. I think I might stop going to lecture and just doing it all on my own time to spare myself the BP spike every time I sit through a class.
 
Welcome to medical school! You've come to the not-so-startling realization that you and you alone are responsible for the first two years of your medical education. Buy a couple books, and get readin'. Finally figuring out that class was a waste took me a year, but life is infinitely better now.
 
MilkmanAl said:
Welcome to medical school! You've come to the not-so-startling realization that you and you alone are responsible for the first two years of your medical education. Buy a couple books, and get readin'. Finally figuring out that class was a waste took me a year, but life is infinitely better now.
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Man, allo forum can be depressing. I already feel this way about most of my undergrad courses, though.
 
fuboy1986 said:
Hi everyone,
I'm pretty frustrated with the quality of education I'm getting in medical school. Most of my lecturers are researchers who are required to teach classes to keep their jobs. There's no certification requirement (certificate/bachelor's, etc) for teaching classes, either. As a result, nearly all of my professors just walk up to the podium and mumble incoherently about something vaguely related to the syllabus chapter for an hour and then leave. The students do most of our studying from outside resources (textbooks, review books and previous exams) to really get any kind of comprehension of the material.

Have you guys had similar experiences? Coming from a pretty good undergrad program, it's just so frustrating that most of my professors in med school don't teach well. I just don't feel like they add much to my education and it really bothers me. I think I might stop going to lecture and just doing it all on my own time to spare myself the BP spike every time I sit through a class.
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I almost never have to use outside resources... and my professors are teachers first... researchers if they choose to be.

I go to a Caribbean school though. (AUC)
 
Man, allo forum can be depressing.
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Quite the contrary, in this case, actually. Unlike undergrad where you often have to account for attendance* or pop quizzes, you're not roped into going to class constantly, so you can generate a livable amount of free time by not going to class. That is a luxury you definitely will not have if you attend classes.

*Milkman says: Try not to attend a school that requires class attendance. They waste your time and kick puppies.
 
The only problem that I have with teaching quality is my table doctor for dissection. He can't even name the structures that we need to dissect and he keeps cutting in the wrong place. He didn't get his degree here though.

All my other lecturers have doctorates in the field that they are lecturing in. And they tend to be able to both lecture and do their research. I mean, my histology lecturer is pretty good and he just extracted stem cells from adipose tissue.
 
I feel you, OP. 95% of the lectures are absolutely awful. Many of them don't even understand the topic and end up just rambling random facts. You can tell the teachers that actually know the material because they're able to catch errors in the presentation as they present. Often though, the lecturer will present incorrect information and we won't find out until a week later when a student emails the course director asking for clarifaction.

What's even worse, though, is that I tried MilkMan's advice - not to go to lecture. I started getting questions wrong on exams that weren't in the notes or assigned readings, but that "the lecturer presented in lecture." So they usually end up picking an obscure fact to test on from the lecturer's incoherent ramble, which makes it even more frustrating.
 
Ouch. There are always one or two (literally) questions per exam that were class-only, but that is a very worthy sacrifice, in my opinion. I could even get those right if I felt like slogging through our note-takers' notes. Sucks that your lecturers aren't better about that. 🙁
 
Once you get into second year, just make sure to cling to First Aid, Rapid Review Path, and bootleg Goljan lectures.

They will shepard you through the valley of darkness.
 
well our institution has the highest merit for admisions but as for as teaching is concerned its horrible...and the worst thing is that class attendance is mandatory..🙁 no way 2 escape..
 
At my university (in Europe), pretty much all the profs. are PhD doctors involved in some sort of research...so they love to bore students with minor details and impose that students learn this stuff for the finals. beat that 🙁
 
shreypete said:
At my university (in Europe), pretty much all the profs. are PhD doctors involved in some sort of research...so they love to bore students with minor details and impose that students learn this stuff for the finals. beat that 🙁
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I think this is the case at every US MD school.
 
We had a professor during m1, m2 years that hated how attendance was so low because everyone would stay at home and watch the videos. So, he would sometimes remove the mic when he wanted to say something specifically about the test. One time he put the mic on his pants zipper for a portion of the lecture.

He was hammered by the dean.
 
fuboy1986 said:
Hi everyone,
I'm pretty frustrated with the quality of education I'm getting in medical school. Most of my lecturers are researchers who are required to teach classes to keep their jobs. There's no certification requirement (certificate/bachelor's, etc) for teaching classes, either. As a result, nearly all of my professors just walk up to the podium and mumble incoherently about something vaguely related to the syllabus chapter for an hour and then leave. The students do most of our studying from outside resources (textbooks, review books and previous exams) to really get any kind of comprehension of the material.

Have you guys had similar experiences? Coming from a pretty good undergrad program, it's just so frustrating that most of my professors in med school don't teach well. I just don't feel like they add much to my education and it really bothers me. I think I might stop going to lecture and just doing it all on my own time to spare myself the BP spike every time I sit through a class.
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Right there with you: with a few notable exceeptions our classes aren't nearly as useful as self study. What's most frustrating is during step 1 training when you start paying Kaplan/Doctors in Training/Falcon Review to teach you and you see the difference in quality between their classes and the classes at school. Obviously it is possible to have useful lectures, since I can pay an outside company to give them to me, so why can't medical school offer the same quality at 10x the price?
 
FlowRate said:
Man, allo forum can be depressing. I already feel this way about most of my undergrad courses, though.
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quite the contrary... i still can't figure out why people would wake their asses up at 7 in the morning when everything is videotaped, and I rarely even bother to see those online videos in the first place. All you need is the syllabus, or in my case, the note pack they give you on the first day (they started putting it into our mailboxes, so you don't even have to go to the first day).

Yes, I'll have to get 2-4 questions wrong on each test because it's material that was specifically mentioned in lecture, but it sure as hell beats undergrad or those dam 3 hour ochem labs.
 
yes, I'am very frustrated about how much money I am paying for this. however, our school is very receptive to students' feedback and won't re-invite the bad lecturers the following year. We've also been told that lecturers get paid less when their feedback is negative (I hope it's true). I also gotta say that about 80% of what is on First Aid is mentioned in the lectures, but you gotta weed out so much crap to get to it.
In any case, I never go in unless I have clinical skills sessions or standardized pts.
 
5-10 years from now medical education will be changing for the better. I think med school across the country are going to start standardizing their education since lecturers/clinicians vary widely from med school to med school. going to class and listening to lectures from 20 different phds/mds a week will soon be a thing of the past. they'll probably get the biggest hot shot in each field, record him teaching an entire section/system and distribute that to every US medical school. We'll all save a lot of time, since there will be less redundancy, more standardization, and less opportunity for worthless lecturers who have no business teaching med students. We get about 20-25 hours of lecture per week in my med school. Say if Pathology was taught by Goljan to all med students in a systematic way, we could cut that time in half, and we'd probably learn a lot more. then 2-3 times a week we can have small group discussions or labs or whatever else is needed. I think most people can tell now that medical education in the first two years can be dramatically improved, too much wasted time and poor poor teaching, at least at my school
 
donkeyboy said:
5-10 years from now medical education will be changing for the better. I think med school across the country are going to start standardizing their education since lecturers/clinicians vary widely from med school to med school. going to class and listening to lectures from 20 different phds/mds a week will soon be a thing of the past. they'll probably get the biggest hot shot in each field, record him teaching an entire section/system and distribute that to every US medical school. We'll all save a lot of time, since there will be less redundancy, more standardization, and less opportunity for worthless lecturers who have no business teaching med students. We get about 20-25 hours of lecture per week in my med school. Say if Pathology was taught by Goljan to all med students in a systematic way, we could cut that time in half, and we'd probably learn a lot more. then 2-3 times a week we can have small group discussions or labs or whatever else is needed. I think most people can tell now that medical education in the first two years can be dramatically improved, too much wasted time and poor poor teaching, at least at my school
Click to expand...

5-10 years from now, medical education in the US will be exactly the same as it is now, that is my prediction.
 
donkeyboy said:
5-10 years from now medical education will be changing for the better. I think med school across the country are going to start standardizing their education since lecturers/clinicians vary widely from med school to med school. going to class and listening to lectures from 20 different phds/mds a week will soon be a thing of the past. they'll probably get the biggest hot shot in each field, record him teaching an entire section/system and distribute that to every US medical school. We'll all save a lot of time, since there will be less redundancy, more standardization, and less opportunity for worthless lecturers who have no business teaching med students. We get about 20-25 hours of lecture per week in my med school. Say if Pathology was taught by Goljan to all med students in a systematic way, we could cut that time in half, and we'd probably learn a lot more. then 2-3 times a week we can have small group discussions or labs or whatever else is needed. I think most people can tell now that medical education in the first two years can be dramatically improved, too much wasted time and poor poor teaching, at least at my school
Click to expand...

I guess this is some dream of yours, but it's not going to happen. While some profs would be happy to not have their teaching responsibilities, it's just not feasible that a university would stop having their faculty teach their students. I'd say it's largely about pride.
 
Stixman28 said:
I guess this is some dream of yours, but it's not going to happen. While some profs would be happy to not have their teaching responsibilities, it's just not feasible that a university would stop having their faculty teach their students. I'd say it's largely about pride.
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Not to mention money. Are all medical schools going to have to pay big bucks to obtain the license to show these videos to their students? How much will they have to pay?

The free lectures that they get now will now cost money. How much do you think that will increase tuition by?

Also how often are these "big gun' lecturers going to update their lectures? Every year? There are constantly new advancements being made and I don't think I'd want to learn 5 or 10 year old medicine.
 
xanthomondo said:
Not to mention money. Are all medical schools going to have to pay big bucks to obtain the license to show these videos to their students? How much will they have to pay?

The free lectures that they get now will now cost money. How much do you think that will increase tuition by?

Also how often are these "big gun' lecturers going to update their lectures? Every year? There are constantly new advancements being made and I don't think I'd want to learn 5 or 10 year old medicine.
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actually it might be cheaper. Universities pay a lot for profs to teach. Even MDs who already work in the hospital get time off to teach, which means lost productivity.
 
Yeah this won't happen, ever. It didn't happen 5-10 yrs ago, and it won't happen 5-10 yrs from now. Basically, you're talking about making med school into an online school. There is one school in the Caribbean that is basically an online school, I don't remember the name at the moment, but I do know that many states prohibit licensure based of the fact that it is online. Sure, in a world of idealism, maybe, but this is not that world.
 
many states prohibit licensure based of the fact that it is online.
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Someone should send every state's medical board a letter informing them that 2/3 of their M1's and M2's hardly ever or never go to class or see lectures in any format, online or otherwise. :laugh: We can't put it online! They'll never get the education they need that way!
 
Sounds like most of my instructors during med school. That's why I eventually skipped lectures and studied on my own for 8 hours during the day. Grades improved dramatically.
 
Depends on the school IMO. Most profs are 100% commited to developing good doctors, and research is a bonus. I think it depends on how tight the resources and $ for research is. If the profs feel like they have to cut throats to keep their positions, the first place that suffers is unfortunately the med students. If you have the option, go to a school that is strongly affiliated with a large medical/research facility and has a larger budget. If the profs aren't stressing over their own jobs, they will be happier and more willing to take the time educating others.
 
thechad said:
Yeah this won't happen, ever. It didn't happen 5-10 yrs ago, and it won't happen 5-10 yrs from now. Basically, you're talking about making med school into an online school. There is one school in the Caribbean that is basically an online school, I don't remember the name at the moment, but I do know that many states prohibit licensure based of the fact that it is online. Sure, in a world of idealism, maybe, but this is not that world.
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Yes I'm talking about an online med school taught by excellent teachers with small group meetings with the med school faculty a few times a week. In my med school only a few people show up to class anyways. If you're at a med school where attendance is mandatory or more than 75% of the people are showing up to class, that will probably change soon. To call it an online school would just scare the public because they don't want to know that their future doctors never go to class, never listen to lectures, or learn from wikipedia. It's a shame, but the truth is why should I go to a class taught by an MD/PhD who may know his stuff, but can't teach worth a dime. Lots of these profs are brilliant, they're just terrible at conveying what they know, thus I'd rather learn from a book.
 
MilkmanAl said:
Someone should send every state's medical board a letter informing them that 2/3 of their M1's and M2's hardly ever or never go to class or see lectures in any format, online or otherwise. :laugh: We can't put it online! They'll never get the education they need that way!
Click to expand...

:meanie:

Haven't been to class in weeks. Please wait till I hit M3 before you send that letter...
 
donkeyboy said:
Yes I'm talking about an online med school taught by excellent teachers with small group meetings with the med school faculty a few times a week. In my med school only a few people show up to class anyways. If you're at a med school where attendance is mandatory or more than 75% of the people are showing up to class, that will probably change soon. To call it an online school would just scare the public because they don't want to know that their future doctors never go to class, never listen to lectures, or learn from wikipedia. It's a shame, but the truth is why should I go to a class taught by an MD/PhD who may know his stuff, but can't teach worth a dime. Lots of these profs are brilliant, they're just terrible at conveying what they know, thus I'd rather learn from a book.
Click to expand...

In a perfect world, that would be how it is. That's not the case though, and you are being idealistic. If that was the case, there would not be multiple medical schools, there would be only one. Why would anyone pay a higher tuition to study at one institution when they can get the same education at another institution for a lower price? Also, since everything is online, there are no restrictions on the number of matriculants. So, you are hypothetically saying that in 5-10 years, this is how things are going to be?

You say that mandatory attendance and schools without mandatory attendance will change soon...ummm...how do you know that? I ask because I am curious.

Lastly, I disagree with your usage of the word "few." I would probably use that word to describe a number in the single digits that is greater than two. Can you give us the size of your class and the number of students who regularly attend classes? Becuase I am sure it is more than a "few."
 
Yes I'm talking about an online med school taught by excellent teachers with small group meetings with the med school faculty a few times a week. In my med school only a few people show up to class anyways. If you're at a med school where attendance is mandatory or more than 75% of the people are showing up to class, that will probably change soon. To call it an online school would just scare the public because they don't want to know that their future doctors never go to class, never listen to lectures, or learn from wikipedia. It's a shame, but the truth is why should I go to a class taught by an MD/PhD who may know his stuff, but can't teach worth a dime. Lots of these profs are brilliant, they're just terrible at conveying what they know, thus I'd rather learn from a book.
Click to expand...
I think they'll stick with the current system where those excellent teachers that you mentioned provide private tutoring for a select few of the richest/dumbest students at Kaplan and Falcon review test prep sessions where they will impart the medical knowledge no one actually learned in class the first time around, and where they will not hesitate to bring the full wrath of US copyright law down on any student who dares to learn while only paying one tuition.

Just a theory

Mid-August for me.
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Only 3 more weeks for me 🙂
 
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Were medical schools that much better back then? It just seems like everyone speaks of the "good ole days" where students attended lectures, lectures were excellent, students were "bright" and the schools were producing "excellent and talented physicians" who didn't have to rely on several 100 tests (sarcasm of course) to make a diagnosis.

I agree though, our lecturers were horrible too at my school.
 
Doctor4Life1769 said:
Were medical schools that much better back then? It just seems like everyone speaks of the "good ole days" where students attended lectures, lectures were excellent, students were "bright" and the schools were producing "excellent and talented physicians" who didn't have to rely on several 100 tests (sarcasm of course) to make a diagnosis.

I agree though, our lecturers were horrible too at my school.
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I don't think they were any better. Too many older doctors have awful bedside manners (med schools have been addressing this problem very aggressively), older doctors gave the business away to insurance companies (that does not sound smart, does it?) and abused the system so badly that now we can't even take a pen from a pharm company. I just don't see anybody being any smarter back then than we are now.
 
thechad said:
Lastly, I disagree with your usage of the word "few." I would probably use that word to describe a number in the single digits that is greater than two. Can you give us the size of your class and the number of students who regularly attend classes? Becuase I am sure it is more than a "few."
Click to expand...

Our lectures regularly get less than 10 students. Sometimes I've seen through the camera less than 5 students. It definitely happens.
 
xanthomondo said:
Our lectures regularly get less than 10 students. Sometimes I've seen through the camera less than 5 students. It definitely happens.
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Oh wow. I can only imagine how cynical the lecturers would feel about their own classes, seeing all those empty seats.

How big is your current class?
 
JC Denton said:
Oh wow. I can only imagine how cynical the lecturers would feel about their own classes, seeing all those empty seats.
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some are, but most aren't... because they know most of the class watches the lectures at home. Especially with this crappy weather. Besides, some professors will tell you what to focus on and what to skim over, so it's definitely worth your time to at least go through the lectures on 2x speed at least once for those professsors.
 
phospho said:
some are, but most aren't... because they know most of the class watches the lectures at home. Especially with this crappy weather. Besides, some professors will tell you what to focus on and what to skim over, so it's definitely worth your time to at least go through the lectures on 2x speed at least once for those professsors.
Click to expand...

I agree - depending on the prof, with some classes there's a big disadvantage to not attending/watching. My plan is to attend classes with my laptop in hand... so I can just tune in when the hints are given, while working on something else that's productive.
 
Oh wow. I can only imagine how cynical the lecturers would feel about their own classes, seeing all those empty seats.
Click to expand...
We're averaging less than 10 students in lecture out of over 180 students in class.

It's not just a generalized apathy, either. We have 1 lecturer that is actually a talented teacher, and when she teaches about half the class show up, despite the fact that she records the lectures them and puts them online. The low numbers are definitely about the low quality of the instruction.

To be honest, though, what's much more embarassing is watching the behavior of the class during TBLs. They're pretty much useless and have mandatory attendance, so we are now at the point where the class is talking so loud during the session that it drowns out the lecturer for even those few people who would be interested in listening. At least the professors lecturing at the empty classrooms can pretend that someone is listening when they put the class online.
 
Don't you guys have to evaluate all your lecturers? We had anonymous evals 3x throughout a unit (near the beginning, midterm, final) for the unit profs, and then an eval following each guest lecture. And the school actually took it seriously, because there were 2 or 3 guest lecturers who were just horrible, and they didn't come back the following year.
 
The lectures suck at our school also.....but we had the benefit of an
associate Dean who would prowl the lecture halls to check on attendance (which was not mandatory, BTW). If the attendance fell below what he
felt was acceptable, he'd cut off the audio taping (we don't have video yet) and send an email saying it would be cut off until attendance increased. Yet it was supposed to be adult learning. I guess the lecturers got miffed when students didn't show up.

The whole thing is just lousy....we don't get a notepack to tell us what's important...no, we get powerpoints of variable quality and textbook reading assignments (about 2 or 3 chapters/lecture hour) with the belief that having us hack our way through the information and try to figure out what's important will somehow enhance our learning of pretty standard material......never considering that what's important to a PhD research is a whole lot different from what seems to be important from Joe Blow student.......

I maintain my assertion that academia is a federal jobs program for researchers/clinicians who couldn't make it in the real world.......and God help you if you call someone by their first/last name w/o having put the 'Doctor' title in front.....you will be genuflecting for hours....
 
thechad said:
In a perfect world, that would be how it is. That's not the case though, and you are being idealistic. If that was the case, there would not be multiple medical schools, there would be only one. Why would anyone pay a higher tuition to study at one institution when they can get the same education at another institution for a lower price?
Click to expand...

There wouldn't only be just medical school because there is still the 3rd and 4th year. Theoretically, schools could offer higher tuition in this system under the pretense that their students would receive a better education on the wards than other schools. Not that I A) ever think that will happen B) agree with the idea of a single "online" school. Just sayin'.

Our school is hit and miss. Some of the professors are really good, others are just plain horrible. Some of the horrible ones don't give a rats ass about it, but some of them try really hard to work with the students to improve the course. I have noticed that the good profs. get a decent turnout, while the bad ones don't. Some of it also has to do with how the class is organized. If the prof. just tests what's on the slides... what's the point of attending lecture?
 
Well, that was pretty insightful, you guys. I had no idea other schools were like that.

It's almost as if the general enthusiasm of our lecturers to teach (and our motivation to study!) constantly declines after high school. Is life in general just burning us out? How depressing...
Whateve the reason, I really envy you guys that don't have graded attendance... 🙁
 
Independent life-long learner. Students who have mostly problem based learning curricula learn how to teach themselves.

Sorry for your frustration, but hope it gets better! 🙂
 
Are most of the people posting in this thread AMGs? Then IMGs shouldn't feel too bad if they also sometimes feel the quality of teaching at their schools seem sub-par at times.
 
Do any of you guys have teaching requirements in order to lecture at your schools? My school doesn't, although we do apparently have optional teaching seminars held once a semester. From what I hear, the only professors that go are the ones that can already teach. 🙁 I was thinking of talking to someone in our administration about at least making the sessions required. If our schools want to take pride in the quality of doctors they make, shouldn't they be taking measures to make sure we're taught well?
Just curious about your ideas about that.

ps. thanks for all the responses! and here I thought I was all alone. 🙂
 
fuboy1986 said:
Do any of you guys have teaching requirements in order to lecture at your schools? My school doesn't, although we do apparently have optional teaching seminars held once a semester. From what I hear, the only professors that go are the ones that can already teach. 🙁 I was thinking of talking to someone in our administration about at least making the sessions required. If our schools want to take pride in the quality of doctors they make, shouldn't they be taking measures to make sure we're taught well?
Just curious about your ideas about that.

ps. thanks for all the responses! and here I thought I was all alone. 🙂
Click to expand...

I think that is a great idea. another thing I thought about is to give all the teaching profs a short booklet about some fundamentals. Basic stuff like using ppts instead of pdfs so you can take notes on them, putting in the syllabus what you're going to be talking about, organizing the syllabus clearly, and so on.
 
fuboy1986 said:
Do any of you guys have teaching requirements in order to lecture at your schools? My school doesn't, although we do apparently have optional teaching seminars held once a semester. From what I hear, the only professors that go are the ones that can already teach. 🙁 I was thinking of talking to someone in our administration about at least making the sessions required. If our schools want to take pride in the quality of doctors they make, shouldn't they be taking measures to make sure we're taught well?
Just curious about your ideas about that.

ps. thanks for all the responses! and here I thought I was all alone. 🙂
Click to expand...

One of the teachers/physicians in our school admitted that they "scrape the bottom of the barrell" for lecturers sometimes. They will go into departments and essentially beg to get someone lecture on xyz topic. I can't imagine it being much different other places, as these lectures are essentially volunteer work.

While it is one of the reasons why lectures are so terrible, it would also make it impossible to impose a "you have to go to this seminar to give a lecture" rule. Some of these teachers are even picked last minute/replace someone last minute.
 
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