Malicious premed/med students

[da8s0859q]

you guys are way too criticial. you guys need to be more open-minded and accepting

Right.

I definitely met a lot of people like you described, and while certainly annoying, I find their attitudes harmless. In fact, a lot of those same people turned out to be the most successful, and were merely deflecting their desire. A lot of people use apathy as a defense mechanism.

Bottom line: until you're on the floor in the hospital, you're not really in a position to judge other people's motivations or capabilities as a doctor. Everyone has their own quirky ways of dealing with the process, and rarely is their external actions a reflection of what's really going on.

Nicely put.

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[ADeadLois]

When I was in undergrad, we had a prof who graded on percent yield. She looked up what the published yield was and took off points from all the pre-med gunners who made up their percent yields to be 90% (generally the best published was lower than 70) If you said why it was high (wet product, filter paper added) it was okay, but if you were trying to prove how sweet you were, it didn't fly.

When I TA'd orgo, I can't tell you how many times I would grade lab reports where the student clearly fudged the percent yield. The best was one student claimed to have a higher percent yield than the published data of the chemist that the reaction was named after.

 

[da8s0859q]

When I TA'd orgo, I can't tell you how many times I would grade lab reports where the student clearly fudged the percent yield. The best was one student claimed to have a higher percent yield than the published data of the chemist that the reaction was named after.

Which rxn was it, do you remember? Inquiring orgo student minds want to know.

 

[Dienekes]

When I TA'd orgo, I can't tell you how many times I would grade lab reports where the student clearly fudged the percent yield. The best was one student claimed to have a higher percent yield than the published data of the chemist that the reaction was named after.

We had a Hispanic kid who claimed a 94% yield on an experiment. Thankfully he had a sense of humor (and thick skin) because the prof retorted with "Apparently all that time you spent working in a lab for Pablo is coming in handy!"

 

[PeepshowJohnny]

Knew this kid in undergrad who I had a few classes with, huge tool. I've got lots of stories, but my favorite was when I had my first lab with him. He wasn't in my group, but the group sitting next to mine. Apparently their results got screwed up. One of the groupmates walks away to get a drink/go to the bathroom and he immediately huddles the remaining ones together.

"Okay, everybody say in your write up that [person who just walked away] was responsible for the mistake. Oh, and don't tell him. I need to do well on this"

This was maybe five minutes after the professor announced this lab report was graded strictly on writing style and presentation of data, not results.

Guy was a total conniver, smart, but always trying to do the least amount possible. I think a lot of people were shocked when he graduated with honors, because they lended him their hard work to copy off because they thought he struggled or couldn't keep up. Turned out he just didn't want to work.

He got into medical school, but I've lost track of him. I can't imagine someone like him can be doing all that well.

 

[jochi1543]

We had a Hispanic kid who claimed a 94% yield on an experiment. Thankfully he had a sense of humor (and thick skin) because the prof retorted with "Apparently all that time you spent working in a lab for Pablo is coming in handy!"

Hm, I don't get it...?



And yes, we should all know that you shouldn't fudge by more than 15%....and fudging yields above 70% already should be prohibited.

 

[jochi1543]

Knew this kid in undergrad who I had a few classes with, huge tool. I've got lots of stories, but my favorite was when I had my first lab with him. He wasn't in my group, but the group sitting next to mine. Apparently their results got screwed up. One of the groupmates walks away to get a drink/go to the bathroom and he immediately huddles the remaining ones together.

"Okay, everybody say in your write up that [person who just walked away] was responsible for the mistake. Oh, and don't tell him. I need to do well on this"

This was maybe five minutes after the professor announced this lab report was graded strictly on writing style and presentation of data, not results.

Funny thing is, you can get a 90+ on a lab report even if your results suck - all you need to do is explain what went wrong, why, and how it can be fixed next time.

 

[Dienekes]

Hm, I don't get it...?

This will explain it

 

[ADeadLois]

Funny thing is, you can get a 90+ on a lab report even if your results suck - all you need to do is explain what went wrong, why, and how it can be fixed next time.

Exactly. We also graded on accuracy of percent yield, but it was rarely more than a few points, and the highest grade typically was in the low to mid 90s.

 

[ADeadLois]

Which rxn was it, do you remember? Inquiring orgo student minds want to know.

Can't remember the exact reaction. I just remember that part of the reaction. Bottom line: don't fudge your percent yields. As long as you know the calculations, you'll be fine.

 

[Drogba]

Can't remember the exact reaction. I just remember that part of the reaction. Bottom line: don't fudge your percent yields. As long as you know the calculations, you'll be fine.

Is that really a philosophy GOB Bluth would agree with?

 

[pinkblue]

My roommate loves to pretend hes a doctor. Sad thing is, he gave up being pre-med a year ago after not being able to hack gen chem. This doesn't stop him from interrupting a conversation to let everyone know "I'm a pre-med, which is basically the same thing as a doctor" whenever something health related comes up.

For example, some girl we know was raped. A couple of guys close to her were having a serious conversation about it and didn't want to include him so he said "Guys, I'm pre-med, you need my advice" as if taking physics and chemistry qualifies him to counsel a rape victim.

I wanted to say "no, you're not a pre-med...you're a C- biology major" but it was just too sad.

I think its funny when people assume I know things about medicine since im pre-med. I'm always like "yeah, I have no idea about that medication/disease"

Now, I like to bug my boyfriend by saying things like: "As a P.M.D. (pre-m.d.), i suggest you avoid eating that doughnut or it could have serious health consequences."

We had a girl in our high school that was a crazy pre-med. Even in tenth grade, she was super competitive because she wanted to get into a good med school. She complained to the principal because one of our teachers gave extra credit on a test. She said it was giving kids unfair opportunities to inflate their grade. The teacher had to stop giving any extra credit, and we all knew who was responsible.

 

[pakbabydoll]

Wow, I'm really floored by all this. I can't imagine people go to such lengths to undermine one another. I have never seen that or experienced that at my institution. It's actually the exact opposite. The pre-med kids study together, hang out, help each other with assignments, tutor the underclassmen, etc. We are a small group though since I'm at a small liberal arts college. I guess it is an advantage in that respect. I don't see the point in undermining others because you're really competing with yourself through the process. Plus, there's always someone else smarter or with better grades, EC's than you. Oh well.

I agree, besides its not like they are bringing up there chances of getting in medical school.

Originally Posted by Dienekes
Yeah, and PakBabyDoll happens to be one of the nicer people in this forum

Thank you

 

[Bartelby]

Bottom line: don't fudge your percent yields. As long as you know the calculations, you'll be fine.

He probably didn't. He probably just got a contaminated final product that ended up weighing enough to appear to give a 90% yield. I don't see why people assume that someone is lying when they say they got a high yield, they are probably just incorrect.

I haven't met these crazy premeds either in classes or on the interview trail, and it is kind of surprising to see how many people have. ETF, I was wondering, what did the fellow interviewees say that made them come across as malicious?

 

[Isoprop]

this is what typically happened to my ochem labs. there are competing reactions. plus, the final product could not be 100% dry. more than once did i get a % yield > 100% and i was fine.

 

[Concordia]

I had a micro lab couple of years ago with a "typical" pre-med girl (who luckily was not in my group). She told anybody and everybody about how she thought the MCAT was a piece of cake, and how she has already received secondaries from our University's Medical school.
She thought that her "pre-med" status qualified her to give answers to any question in the lab. It was impossible for our group to study together before tests b/c she would listen across the lab bench and shout answers as quickly as she could (kind of like microbiology Jeopardy), sometimes before the question was even finished. At the end of the semester I finally lost my temper and told her to STFU. Even our TA was thankful.

Last I heard she didn't get in anywhere.

 

[Isoprop]

I had a micro lab couple of years ago with a "typical" pre-med girl (who luckily was not in my group). She told anybody and everybody about how she thought the MCAT was a piece of cake, and how she has already received secondaries from our University's Medical school.
She thought that her "pre-med" status qualified her to give answers to any question in the lab. It was impossible for our group to study together before tests b/c she would listen across the lab bench and shout answers as quickly as she could (kind of like microbiology Jeopardy), sometimes before the question was even finished. At the end of the semester I finally lost my temper and told her to STFU. Even our TA was thankful.

Last I heard she didn't get in anywhere.

too good to be true. these type of people always get into med school

 

[Concordia]

I know and yet there it is. She had the GPA and possibly the MCAT, but as far as personality and social skills... I like to think that sometimes there is something akin to karma and fairness in this world.

 

[ADeadLois]

He probably didn't. He probably just got a contaminated final product that ended up weighing enough to appear to give a 90% yield. I don't see why people assume that someone is lying when they say they got a high yield, they are probably just incorrect.

We'd always run NMRs on the final product (to practice interpreting them). Hers was pretty clean, so it was rather obvious she fudged the data.

 

[collegefootball]

I’m not really a pre-med, but more of a pre allied health professional. I do have class with about 12 so called pre-med students (I go to a small liberal art schools and the science classes are usually about 15 to 20 students). My god! I can’t even stand going to class with these people. Here are the personalities of several of the students:

Girl 1: she always needs attention and tries to get attention in any way she can. She will literally call a person a ***** just to get people to look at her. Heck, in her Facebook profile she even wrote the following, “If I’m not talking to you, that means I think you are a *****.” Only a b_ _ _ h would write something like that. Even if you just glance in her way she will literally just stare at you and tell you not to look at her. I can’t stand this person.

Girl 2: everything is about getting into medical school. Every assignment is, “I need the best score I can get so I can get into medical school.” She doesn’t even care about getting an understanding of the material. She will literally ask in lectures if this topic will be on the next exam. And I mean literally.

Boy 3: This person is 33 years old and thinks he can get into Harvard, any Ivy League school, Stanford, or any other school of his choice. English is his second language. He got a B.S. degree from a foreign county in chemical engineering with a cumulative GPA of 2.7. His wife told him he needed to become a doctor because his wife wants him to be a doctor. He claims he bought into his wife’s idea and says that he is destined to be a medical doctor when asked why he wants to be a doctor. He has taken the MCAT twice and score the worst possible score you can get on the verbal section (or some English version..something that is graded with an A,B,C,D and so forth – I guess). He has been in his so called post-doc for three years already and has never worked a single day in these three years. He has done well with all his course work now. So one day I asked him when he was going to get a job. He stated the following: “I don’t have time to get a job, I will be doing interviews next year.”

Boy 4: I ask him to explain a complex chemistry seminar in layman’s terms because I didn’t go to the seminar. This so called A student explained the seminar topic in even more complexity then what the title was. I didn’t understand a single word he was saying. So this check that sits next to him that gets “average” grades was able to explain the whole 30 minute chemistry seminar in only a couple of sentences in very easy to understand terms.

Boy 5: Oh, I just learned that I need to get an undergraduate degree to get into medical school. So he transfers schools to get a degree.

Girl 6: Always asking the professor what “this and that means”. My god girl read the fricken book or go online and figure it out yourself.

Girl 7: Why do you want to become a physician? Because I think it’s interesting.

Me: when I get exams back I just through the exams in the trash and don’t even bother looking at the answers I get wrong (I just look at the score). I’m not going to spend 3 hours trying to get every single point back I can. I use to asks questions during lectures but I stopped doing that this year because I have learned that its all about your exam scores and showing interests in the material OUTSIDE OF THE LECTURE TO THE PROFESSOR. I have a strong interests in one specific science subject. Since I don’t think I would be happy as a family doctor, a peds doctor, pharmacist, I might just applying and get the degree that allows me to work specially with the subject that I care the most about.

 

[maestro1625]

Knew this kid in undergrad who I had a few classes with, huge tool. I've got lots of stories, but my favorite was when I had my first lab with him. He wasn't in my group, but the group sitting next to mine. Apparently their results got screwed up. One of the groupmates walks away to get a drink/go to the bathroom and he immediately huddles the remaining ones together.

"Okay, everybody say in your write up that [person who just walked away] was responsible for the mistake. Oh, and don't tell him. I need to do well on this"

This was maybe five minutes after the professor announced this lab report was graded strictly on writing style and presentation of data, not results.

Guy was a total conniver, smart, but always trying to do the least amount possible. I think a lot of people were shocked when he graduated with honors, because they lended him their hard work to copy off because they thought he struggled or couldn't keep up. Turned out he just didn't want to work.

He got into medical school, but I've lost track of him. I can't imagine someone like him can be doing all that well.

hell, he's probably in my class. We've had issues with people cheating...grr. I'll be quite satisfied if/when they get caught.

 

[chemphd]

In the orgo classes I've taught, I've gotten regrade requests that are literally longer than the exam. Generally, they ask for about 15 points back and are lucky if they get any (grasping at straws, asking for partial credit where none was given). I'm all for fair grading, but at some point, I wish I could tell them that if they spent half as much time studying as they do grade-grubbing and whining about how chemistry is designed exclusively to keep them out of med school, that they would get a full letter grade better.
The point: grubbing for one point does not help your case. Studying more and smarter and asking questions will.

 

[da8s0859q]

Girl 1: she always needs attention and tries to get attention in any way she can. She will literally call a person a ***** just to get people to look at her. Heck, in her Facebook profile she even wrote the following, “If I’m not talking to you, that means I think you are a *****.” Only a b_ _ _ h would write something like that.

I dunno, that could be bitchy or just awfully self-assured / meant to be amusing (my best friend and I say similar things on occasion). But if she's an attention *****, yeah, you're right.

 

[AggieSean]

There were 2 fun personalities in my MCAT review class.

Girl A had to always mention that "my mom is an OB-GYN." My God, we could be talking about Newton's 2nd Law and she'd find some way to work in the fact that "well, my mom is an OB-GYN and..."


Girl B felt compelled to blurt out answers and 90% of the time they just couldn't have been more wrong. Our teacher was quizzing us over Hess's law and wanted to know what it was called and she almost yelled "Kirchoff's laws!" And she would always explain along with the teacher, and would do it loudly enough that you couldn't understand what the teacher was saying. Then she'd talk about how dumb physics was. So I wore my department of physics shirt to class as often as possible (I'm a physics major). She glared at me frequently during breaks. Weird.

I haven't met anyone really malicious or anything, just more weird ones like those 2 girls.

 

[da8s0859q]

Girl B felt compelled to blurt out answers and 90% of the time they just couldn't have been more wrong. Our teacher was quizzing us over Hess's law and wanted to know what it was called and she almost yelled "Kirchoff's laws!"

Kirchhoff's Law... ahh, the summer physics flashbacks. Good luck w/ your apps, by the way; was in CS the other day.

 

[He2]

bump, i love this thread hehe...

 

[lei217]

I can't think of any malicious pre-med students at my school but I do know what you mean about how people treat you differently when they know you are pre-med. I try to avoid even saying that I am, but when I went to one of my English (my minor) teachers last week for help with something she started asking me all about what I was majoring in and then what was I doing after school. So it came out that I am pre-med and now she acts totally weird. Today in class, somehow we got to some health-related topic and she told everyone in the class "Well, let's just ask ___, she is pre-med, she'll know," so everyone now is asking me questions, etc... It is the PRE in pre-med that people need to pay attention to!

 

[dazlindz]

Me: when I get exams back I just through the exams in the trash and don’t even bother looking at the answers I get wrong (I just look at the score). I’m not going to spend 3 hours trying to get every single point back I can. I use to asks questions during lectures but I stopped doing that this year because I have learned that its all about your exam scores and showing interests in the material OUTSIDE OF THE LECTURE TO THE PROFESSOR. I have a strong interests in one specific science subject. Since I don’t think I would be happy as a family doctor, a peds doctor, pharmacist, I might just applying and get the degree that allows me to work specially with the subject that I care the most about.

haha you sound the most normal out of the crazy premeds in your class. but don't make fun of people just because they're interested in learning the material! grades don't really "matter" anymore this quarter and i'm still trying to go strong, and i still take the time to talk to the professor about the stuff i don't know. some people actually want to know where they went wrong and to learn some stuff, ya know?

 

[paranoid_eyes]

sometimes, i feel that the lab TA's have been instructed to be dinguses to us. And i can take a lot of ****, before i come to the conclusion that someone is an dingus.

Oh yea, and my school has this dreadful assignment called CPR where students grade each other's papers. A girl in my lab said "so what if i mark down two or three points (out of ten) for grammar/spelling? Those things really count for me" At that point i SO DAMN close to dousing her with my boiling ethanol.

 

[drizzt3117]

Oh yea, and my school has this dreadful assignment called CPR where students grade each other's papers. A girl in my lab said "so what if i mark down two or three points (out of ten) for grammar/spelling? Those things really count for me" At that point i SO DAMN close to dousing her with my boiling ethanol.

Maybe working on your grammar/spelling would be more productive? It's not like you couldn't be marked down for it by a TA or professor.

 

[chizledfrmstone]

I always used to harass people during Ochem Lab.

- Made fun of a girl because it looked like an autistic lemur threw product on her IR card. She needs better hand eye coordination anyway...

- Some girl was practically bathing in acetone while cleaning her beakers. Harassed her for trying to steal acteone.

- Told some girl I don't feel comfortable with her working near a certain machine because she #%# it up last time and I don't want my spectra to be ruined. ( I could really care less.. I'd just write what should and shouldn't be in the spectra...)

But I've always followed it up with a "I'm only joking and trying to be playful... btw my name is _______ and I already know I'm an a**hole"

( Now that I think about it... I wasn't being a neurotic pre-med...just dumb)

P.S. I've been getting > 200% yield lately because my stir bar keeps falling in my PDT.

 

[ScienceJunkie]

just sayin.

oh hai misc

 

[ScienceJunkie]

Thanks to the crazy pre-meds in my organic lab, we had to station a TA at the reagents stations so that people wouldn't deliberately change the pipet settings. Apparently someone was taking the reagents as they were intially intended and then changing the pipet settings to ensure other people wouldn't start out with the right materials or concentrations. Since we are graded on percent yield, that gave them a huge advantage. Nice!

michael crichton said that when he was an undergrad at harvard (he went there for med as well), he was deliberately told the wrong reagent when asking a fellow student for help....in organic chemistry lab.

he supposedly made one of the biggest lab fires in the history of school.

 

[TimeResonance]

(btw, what dingus professor grades on percent yield in orgo? I can understand that in analytical, but in orgo? I don't think I ever had a reaction break 50%.)

I consistently broke 100% on percent yield. That just means i'm really good... right?

 

[da8s0859q]

sometimes, i feel that the lab TA's have been instructed to be dinguses to us. And i can take a lot of ****, before i come to the conclusion that someone is an dingus.

Oh yea, and my school has this dreadful assignment called CPR where students grade each other's papers. A girl in my lab said "so what if i mark down two or three points (out of ten) for grammar/spelling? Those things really count for me" At that point i SO DAMN close to dousing her with my boiling ethanol.

I superheated and volcano'd some ethanol last week. Guess she should've been peering into the testtube at the time.

 

[chizledfrmstone]

sometimes, i feel that the lab TA's have been instructed to be dinguses to us. And i can take a lot of ****, before i come to the conclusion that someone is an dingus.

Oh yea, and my school has this dreadful assignment called CPR where students grade each other's papers. A girl in my lab said "so what if i mark down two or three points (out of ten) for grammar/spelling? Those things really count for me" At that point i SO DAMN close to dousing her with my boiling ethanol.

16 M Nitric Acid works better... Trust me.. I know.

In freshman year I dared my partnet to pour 18 M sulfuric Acid into water... It exploded into toxic fumes and we had to evac the room. He told teh TA he thought it was water...

 

[Omyss]

oh hai misc

lol we're everywhere.

 

[ScienceJunkie]

lol we're everywhere.

what's your username on bb.com?

just askin'

 

[mvenus929]

It's actually the exact opposite. The pre-med kids study together, hang out, help each other with assignments, tutor the underclassmen, etc.

We have the same sort of thing, except I tend to hang out more with pre-dents than pre-meds. I'm not sure why... it just kinda worked out that way. I thought they were all pre-meds until this year, when they started talking about taking the DAT.

He has taken the MCAT twice and score the worst possible score you can get on the verbal section (or some English version..something that is graded with an A,B,C,D and so forth – I guess).

So... he got a J, or a T? Because you make it sound like he got the lowest in the alphabet, which is a T, but that's the best score....

Girl 6: Always asking the professor what “this and that means”. My god girl read the fricken book or go online and figure it out yourself.

I can understand why that gets annoying, but what's wrong with someone trying to understand a concept. Maybe the book doesn't make sense to her...

Me: when I get exams back I just through the exams in the trash and don’t even bother looking at the answers I get wrong (I just look at the score). I’m not going to spend 3 hours trying to get every single point back I can.

Ever think that people that keep their tests just want to use them for a learning experience, rather than trying to get points back? When I get tests back, I want to figure out why I missed points on certain things, so that I learn the concept better. Just saying...

I superheated and volcano'd some ethanol last week. Guess she should've been peering into the testtube at the time.

When we were doing a macro scale orgo lab (rather than microscale), we were told to swirl and vent our flasks. The girl that was sitting next to me shook her solution a little too much before venting it, and the cap popped off and came about an inch from hitting me in the face. That was an interesting experience.

 

[BeatrixKiddo]

Nothing "malicious" about this one, but I just thought it was arrogant and stupid...a while ago, I signed up for hospital volunteering (ended up dropping it cuz I already had a lot, and this hospital sucked), and I was paired up with this kid from my orgo class. The older guy who volunteered in the ER was giving us a tour of the department and the hospital, and he kept referring to both of us as med students. "Med students like you..." etc. I kept correcting him and saying "I'm not a med student, just an undergrad," but the other guy would just smirk all smug and not say anything! Eventually, the old fella turns around and asks the dude "So, are YOU a med student then?" The guy was like "uhh...uhm....uhhhh" and then I said "NO, he's in my CHEMISTRY class."

God, what a tool.

Nothing wrong with that, the doctor I shadowed kept calling me a medical student, i don't think patients really care, and it would be rude to correct the doctor in front of the patients. before i started shadowing i told him i am getting my bachelors and APPLYING now, the point is, no one cares, i don't care, just stfu gosh.

 

[BeatrixKiddo]

There were 2 fun personalities in my MCAT review class.

Girl A had to always mention that "my mom is an OB-GYN." My God, we could be talking about Newton's 2nd Law and she'd find some way to work in the fact that "well, my mom is an OB-GYN and..."


Girl B felt compelled to blurt out answers and 90% of the time they just couldn't have been more wrong. Our teacher was quizzing us over Hess's law and wanted to know what it was called and she almost yelled "Kirchoff's laws!" And she would always explain along with the teacher, and would do it loudly enough that you couldn't understand what the teacher was saying. Then she'd talk about how dumb physics was. So I wore my department of physics shirt to class as often as possible (I'm a physics major). She glared at me frequently during breaks. Weird.

I haven't met anyone really malicious or anything, just more weird ones like those 2 girls.

but you're hot

 

[GrumpyAlyson06]

but you're hot

Amen to that!!

 

[chemphd]

sometimes, i feel that the lab TA's have been instructed to be dinguses to us. And i can take a lot of ****, before i come to the conclusion that someone is an dingus.

They are mostly there to make sure you don't kill yourselves, not to become your best friends...

 

[chizledfrmstone]

what's your username on bb.com?

just askin'

I thought I knew what you guys were talking about but I didn't believe it at first... PM me if you wana know mine (Used to be a TL rep if that helps).

 

[Omyss]

what's your username on bb.com?

just askin'

Malodrax... you?

 

[jochi1543]

Malodrax... you?

I used to post there (different username), but I couldn't deal with the enormous egos anymore (yes, it's even worse than SDN). Now I just read the front page and any articles that interest me.

 

[Bacchus]

How about people that try to outstudy you. Nothing more gunnerish than that.

 

[Omyss]

I used to post there (different username), but I couldn't deal with the enormous egos anymore (yes, it's even worse than SDN). Now I just read the front page and any articles that interest me.

I just go to the misc... it's makes for some lulz.

Unfortunetely, you get the odd troll posting gay porn.

 

[da8s0859q]

Nothing wrong with that, the doctor I shadowed kept calling me a medical student, i don't think patients really care, and it would be rude to correct the doctor in front of the patients. before i started shadowing i told him i am getting my bachelors and APPLYING now, the point is, no one cares, i don't care, just stfu gosh.

Have had that happen, too - it's just simpler.

 

[Soggun]

There are always going to be people who are just plain not nice, whether they are pre-meds, meds, or any other group of people. But the simple fact of the matter is that the stress of med school in particular can and does really alter one's personality. There have been a few times already (and I'm only a few months in) that I've noticed myself snapping at family or friends that aren't going through this because they expect more time from me than I have have. I'm sure you've all heard this before, and I don't really expect anyone to internalize before going through this process, but med school can really strain your relationships. When you do make it, always try to allocate specific blocks of time in your day to give a bit of time to those you care about. If you don't plan the time that way, you surely won't have it and that can make med school feel very isolated.