Mandatory attendance for MS1 and MS2 to protect schools from malpractice

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jellybird

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Hey guys. My medical school. Touro-COM, is probably going to institute a mandatory attendance policy, in which students will be required to attend at least 70% of classes and 95% of labs. One reason that they give is that in medical malpractice lawyers are now also going after medical schools to see if the doc in question ever went to classes. If the school can't show records that they did, they are now being made to share in the liability for issuing a degree to a noncompetent physician. This is despite USMLE / COMLEX exams stating that a the physician is competent to the level of their training.

Has anybody heard this before? I poked around the internet and found examples of where medical malpractice rates can be correlated by medical school, but not by attendance (http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/picrender.fcgi?artid=1743759&blobtype=pdf)

Does your school have a mandatory attendance policy? Why did they institute it? How do you feel about it? Are you aware of any trends in board scores (positive or negative) related to med school classroom attendance?

Just as an aside, in order to be accredited by the American Bar Association, law schools are required to have an attendance policy and where students are required to be present in class at least 80% of the time.
 
i'm assuming touro didn't give any real evidence that this is definitely being considered by lawyers? i ask bc you probably would have provided it if they had... i wonder where the 70% lecture attendance number came from? if you could see if you could find out more info, i'd definitely be interested in hearing more details about this. personally, lecture is a waste of time for me. we have all of our lectures taped and made available for download and streaming through a website that gets updated every day. my school encourages us to attend lectures bc they SAY they have data to show that lecture attendance is correlated to higher board scores, but never show us the data whenever someone asks to see these numbers. for us, the only time any student is required to attend all lectures is if they are under some sort of academic review bc of poor performance the previous semester, but if they boost their grades back up they are no longer required to attend.

thanks for posting that article btw 👍 too bad it didn't collect data from my state though
 
I'm wondering about the 70% too. If they were concerned about being held partially responsible in malpractice cases, wouldt putting an actual percentage on in open them up to more scrutiny?
I can see a lawyer saying that the phycician was incompetent because he/she went to a school that only required him to go to class 70% of the time.
Then some idiots in the jury might assume that that applies to the clinical years as well.

You either require 100% attendace or you dont say anything and leave the responsibility up to the student.
 
b/c sitting in class is what is required to become a competent physician.
 
Wahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha.........I guess this one sounds better than the "Professionalism" tune that most schools use to try to get people to attend lecture. I can just see it now:

Lawyer: Your honor, Dr. xyz didn't provide an adequate standard of care because, as you can see here in Plaintiff's exhibit A, that he missed his medical school lecture on Protein P2048320482304, a novel Ag+ binding protein that is an in-vitro allosteric inhibitor of the G-alpha subunit of the platypus MAP kinase kinase kinase kinase.

I'll say it again: Wahahahahahahahahahahahaha!
 
I thought attendance was already mandatory at Touro? At least that's what they told me when I was in the midst of med school applications year before last.
 
What a lame thing for lawyers to do.

As long as you do well on the tests does attendance really matter?

We had note co-ops, tape recorders and even video cameras to record the lectures to watch when we're more awake.
 
Samus Aran said:
in other news, i really hate all greedy medical malpractice lawyers.
Click to expand...

👍 And this is complete crap. But then again lawyers did come up with it so....yeah. It's definitely crap.
 
Sol Rosenberg said:
Wahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha.........I guess this one sounds better than the "Professionalism" tune that most schools use to try to get people to attend lecture. I can just see it now:

Lawyer: Your honor, Dr. xyz didn't provide an adequate standard of care because, as you can see here in Plaintiff's exhibit A, that he missed his medical school lecture on Protein P2048320482304, a novel Ag+ binding protein that is an in-vitro allosteric inhibitor of the G-alpha subunit of the platypus MAP kinase kinase kinase kinase.

I'll say it again: Wahahahahahahahahahahahaha!
Click to expand...

Well, they are trying the "Professionalism" thing, too. They are trying to convince us on several levels, none of which are working.

This is the first year at Touro-COM in NY that attendance has been mandatory. Before it was "encouraged" for most lectures, and mandatory for most guest lectures, but this is the first time that 70% of classes will be compulsory. Needless to say, my classmates aren't pleased.

I spoke with a medical malpractice lawyer and she informed me that under no circumstances would she ever bother suing the medical school. Since it's not the medical school's job to license the physician there is no chance they'd get enough money from the medical school to make suing them worth it. If they really wanted to go after somebody for licensing an incompetent physician they'd have to go after the licensing board.
 
jellybird said:
Hey guys. My medical school. Touro-COM, is probably going to institute a mandatory attendance policy, in which students will be required to attend at least 70% of classes and 95% of labs. One reason that they give is that in medical malpractice lawyers are now also going after medical schools to see if the doc in question ever went to classes. If the school can't show records that they did, they are now being made to share in the liability for issuing a degree to a noncompetent physician. This is despite USMLE / COMLEX exams stating that a the physician is competent to the level of their training.

Has anybody heard this before? I poked around the internet and found examples of where medical malpractice rates can be correlated by medical school, but not by attendance (http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/picrender.fcgi?artid=1743759&blobtype=pdf)

Does your school have a mandatory attendance policy? Why did they institute it? How do you feel about it? Are you aware of any trends in board scores (positive or negative) related to med school classroom attendance?

Just as an aside, in order to be accredited by the American Bar Association, law schools are required to have an attendance policy and where students are required to be present in class at least 80% of the time.
Click to expand...

Medical schools don't take attendance and don't keep those records so that malpractice attorneys looking at that information would likely find it low yield. How would they track class/lab attendance of an FMG? Residency experience/quality of residency program and is a better indicator of fit for practice versus medical school attendance.

My schools have no mandatory class/lab attendance. At times, there are mandatory class meetings for information purposes but other than that, you are on your own. If a student is doing poorly in coursework, it may be suggested that they attend class but nothing is mandatory.

Your school is "pulling your chain" with the mandatory attendance. While they can attempt to institute such a policy, if it wasn't in place before you started, then you can't be forced to attend class. Malpractice is a non-issue since some people who attend medical school may never practice.
 
if they would have made me attend lectures, i would have failed out of school.

what about us who do well on our own and see lecture as getting in the way of valuable self-study?

this sounds like BS, but if its true i am so sorry man.
 
I agree it's BS... I know too many people who did extremely well in medical school just because they didn't go to lecture and waste their time. One of the reasons I chose the med school I'm going to is because we're not required to attend class, and everything is recorded.
 
I understand why some students prefer to watch videos at home for a variety of reasons, but I do think it's good to go to as many lectures as possible. It's the respectful thing to do and it honors the professor.
 
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Zoom-Zoom said:
I understand why some students prefer to watch videos at home for a variety of reasons, but I do think it's good to go to as many lectures as possible. It's the respectful thing to do and it honors the professor.
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why dont you wait until you start medical school to weigh in on this.
 
how will layers verify the foreign medical grads?
 
NJDIF said:
why dont you wait until you start medical school to weigh in on this.
Click to expand...

Lol. Defensive-much? I'm not sure why my comment would require any experience, or how it differs at all from undergrad. It's pretty sad that I actually need to clarify:

Going to class shows respect to the professor. This isn't exactly debatable. It doesn't mean you're being disrespectful if you learn better at home, that's a different debate. Some people have to, or prefer to, do this for a variety of reasons. But, if you can go, go. There's a reason they're making up things to get you to class. They want you there. If you were a professor, you would too.
 
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Zoom-Zoom said:
Lol. Defensive-much? I'm not sure why my comment would require any experience, or how it differs at all from undergrad. Let me clarify:

Going to class shows respect to the professor. It doesn't mean your being disrespectful if you learn better at home, that's not what I said. If you can go, go. There's a reason they're making up reasons to get you to class. They want you there. If you were a professor, you would too.
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That's crazy talk. Don't make others suffer for your radical views.
 
Zoom-Zoom said:
Lol. Defensive-much? I'm not sure why my comment would require any experience, or how it differs at all from undergrad. It's pretty sad that I actually need to clarify:
Click to expand...


:laugh::laugh::laugh: i stopped reading your post after this. thanks for playing.
 
Zoom-Zoom said:
Lol. Defensive-much? I'm not sure why my comment would require any experience, or how it differs at all from undergrad. It's pretty sad that I actually need to clarify:

Going to class shows respect to the professor. This isn't exactly debatable. It doesn't mean you're being disrespectful if you learn better at home, that's a different debate. Some people have to, or prefer to, do this for a variety of reasons. But, if you can go, go. There's a reason they're making up things to get you to class. They want you there. If you were a professor, you would too.
Click to expand...

I think the opposite: requiring attendance disrespects students and wastes their time. If you choose to not attend and manage your time such that you are a more efficient learner, you should not have to go. I also find it disrespectful that they spend money on making the same lectures over and over when they could just record them and post them online. Large lectures are just a relic of the past that they are clinging to.
 
I agree that they shouldn't require attendance. It's actually pretty respectful to the students that despite an overwhelming desire to have everyone come to class, most schools still give you the freedom not to go.
 
NJDIF said:
:laugh::laugh::laugh: i stopped reading your post after this. thanks for playing.
Click to expand...

Drrr? I'm very glad you were most likely rejected from my med school. You have quite the malignant personality, and I feel for those who have to spend substantial time around you. In this respect it's probably best that you don't attend class :laugh:
 
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I am in medschool outside of the US. We have mandatory class attendance. In the beginning it was pretty hard to deal, but I have found that it can actually be not that bad.

Our classes here are small (20 people tops) so they are mostly discussion based. I can't imagine having mandatory lectures...
 
We have mandatory lectures. Haven't been here long enough yet for it to drive me crazy, but I could see how it could.

Zoom: Stop talking.
 
Zoom-Zoom said:
Lol. Defensive-much? I'm not sure why my comment would require any experience, or how it differs at all from undergrad. It's pretty sad that I actually need to clarify:

Going to class shows respect to the professor. This isn't exactly debatable. It doesn't mean you're being disrespectful if you learn better at home, that's a different debate. Some people have to, or prefer to, do this for a variety of reasons. But, if you can go, go. There's a reason they're making up things to get you to class. They want you there. If you were a professor, you would too.
Click to expand...
After a few weeks (maybe even days,) you'll change your tune as you realize that Basic Science Education in Medical School is almost an afterthought to the [non-clinical] faculty who generally dominate the teaching.

The most experienced/knowledgeable PhDs seem frustrated that medical education only scrapes the surface of the topic that they have devoted their whole life to researching, and they get 1 hour to present everything to the class. More often, the newest faculty member(s) in the department will get "stuck" with the teaching -- they just take the presentation verbatim from the year before (even if they didn't present it,) read through it, and have trouble answering even not-so-tough questions on the material, because that material is not their specific area of expertise. Many lecturers will just take the syllabus, convert it to powerpoint, and read it verbatim for their lecture. This is a blatant waste of my time (I can read the syllabus just fine on my own, thank you -- I don't need someone to read it to me) and is not deserving of any "honor," or "respect" in my opinion.

For the most part, I have found the clinical faculty lectures to be much more enthusiastic, informative, better at answering questions, and, quite frankly more interesting.

But, those are just my experiences, of course.
 
I dunno, I'm going to be pretty serious about attendance for at least the first few months, simply because I'm not sure exactly what I'm dealing with and I'll feel very out of the loop if I don't. I need to feel like I'm in school to stay focused 🙂
 
Diksha said:
I dunno, I'm going to be pretty serious about attendance for at least the first few months, simply because I'm not sure exactly what I'm dealing with and I'll feel very out of the loop if I don't. I need to feel like I'm in school to stay focused 🙂
Click to expand...

If you're like 95% of med students, that feeling will fade after a few months.
 
Sol Rosenberg said:
After a few weeks (maybe even days,) you'll change your tune as you realize that Basic Science Education in Medical School is almost an afterthought to the [non-clinical] faculty who generally dominate the teaching.

The most experienced/knowledgeable PhDs seem frustrated that medical education only scrapes the surface of the topic that they have devoted their whole life to researching, and they get 1 hour to present everything to the class. More often, the newest faculty member(s) in the department will get "stuck" with the teaching -- they just take the presentation verbatim from the year before (even if they didn't present it,) read through it, and have trouble answering even not-so-tough questions on the material, because that material is not their specific area of expertise. Many lecturers will just take the syllabus, convert it to powerpoint, and read it verbatim for their lecture. This is a blatant waste of my time (I can read the syllabus just fine on my own, thank you -- I don't need someone to read it to me) and is not deserving of any "honor," or "respect" in my opinion.

For the most part, I have found the clinical faculty lectures to be much more enthusiastic, informative, better at answering questions, and, quite frankly more interesting.

But, those are just my experiences, of course.
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Wow, that's too bad. I'm in orientation this week so I'll have to wait and see. I have no problem with skipping class when the teacher has no concern for teaching whatsoever, but in my past experience these people have been in the minority.
 
1. If there's a medical malpractice, SUE THE ATTENDING not the medical student. How can we do any harm if I can't even put in orders without cosigning?

2. Yeah, sitting in 70% of the biochemistry classes will help you kill less people. The Kreb cycle will save us all.
 
The point is to convey vital information to the student, to have the student process this information, know how to apply it in various situations, and hopefully do well on the written exam. To insist that listening to this information conveyed by audio or live is the best/only way to learn it is ludicrous. Med schools need to get with the program - libraries have. Libraries are no longer repositories of information (they are still that) - they are information hubs where they provide services to get you the information you need - in a book, from a library at another university, from a library in another state, from an online database, from an online journal, from an archive, etc. The responsibility of the 1st two years of medical school is for the school to provide you with reasonable access to information necessary for you to learn the material for the exams and the boards. My school has PBL, a syllabus, recommended readings, textbooks on course reserves, live lectures, taped audio lectures, PPT slides, labs and demonstrations, online textbooks, etc. It's up to you to determine what resources you will use to learn the information. (Unfortunately, PBL is one of those grade-school type nonsenses where they force you to attend because if you didn't have to attend nobody would (they're a waste of time, duh)).

Many people learn better from textbooks, syllabi, the internet, etc. If you understand cardiovascular physiology, does it matter whether you understood it because you heard it in lecture, read it in a syllabus, read it in Guyton, read it in review articles you found on PubMed, had it taught to you by your doctor father?
 
Zoom-Zoom said:
Lol. Defensive-much? I'm not sure why my comment would require any experience, or how it differs at all from undergrad. It's pretty sad that I actually need to clarify:

Going to class shows respect to the professor. This isn't exactly debatable. It doesn't mean you're being disrespectful if you learn better at home, that's a different debate. Some people have to, or prefer to, do this for a variety of reasons. But, if you can go, go. There's a reason they're making up things to get you to class. They want you there. If you were a professor, you would too.
Click to expand...

I couldn't care less about how the profs feel.
They work for us; we are the ones paying their salary.
School should be setup in a way that makes it easiest to learn the material. This is different for different people.
 
gman33 said:
I couldn't care less about how the profs feel.
They work for us; we are the ones paying their salary.
School should be setup in a way that makes it easiest to learn the material. This is different for different people.
Click to expand...

The truth is that thinking just creates a viscous cycle. The lectures aren't so hot so people skip, then the prof start saying "I'm not going to spend 8 hours preparing an awsome lecture if only half the class comes." Lectures get worse and less people come etc.

While I definatly found a lot of lectures unhelpful I think because you are paying rather than saying "this sucks, I'm not going," as a class you should be saying "I deserve better, how can we get it?"

Medical education eventually needs to stress teaching to the point where there are more clinical educators, people for whom a significant amount of their time is protected for teaching. Look at how many lectures a year your college profs give. Docs can't learn to teach well if they only lecture once or twice a year.
 
jbar said:
Medical education eventually needs to stress teaching to the point where there are more clinical educators, people for whom a significant amount of their time is protected for teaching. Look at how many lectures a year your college profs give. Docs can't learn to teach well if they only lecture once or twice a year.
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Why? The real learning happens in the hospital. While it would be nice to have awesome teachers while learning biochemistry, I think that "need" is overdoing it. Frankly, most preclinical courses are pretty simple, concept-wise; just memorize and regurgitate. If I were taking quantum dynamics a good teacher would be indispensable; anatomy, not so much.
 
gman33 said:
I couldn't care less about how the profs feel.
They work for us; we are the ones paying their salary.
Click to expand...

i agree 100%. they spend thousands of dollars to educate us and we pay thousands of dollars for that education. if a student learns better through online lectures than in-class lectures, the goal has been accomplished imo.
 
WellWornLad said:
Why? The real learning happens in the hospital. While it would be nice to have awesome teachers while learning biochemistry, I think that "need" is overdoing it. Frankly, most preclinical courses are pretty simple, concept-wise; just memorize and regurgitate. If I were taking quantum dynamics a good teacher would be indispensable; anatomy, not so much.
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For some people it does matter. They learn from lectures better than from books. But that doesn't mean they learn equally well from all lectures, they deserve to have good teachers. And especially in situations where there is mandatory attendance it matters even more for the rest of the class who is forced to sit there.

Is the material complicated? No, but even simple stuff if poorly presented makes people tune out. Also, in medical school we are short for time, I don't have time on my own to read a whole embryo book and pull out for myself what is important, so I find some value in having someone present it to me.

Again, the answer to the classes being not super relevant isn't to skip them, it's to push for more relevency, to push for reduced emphasis on biochem etc. But you don't have credibility to complain about a lecture or a module that you skipped.

The other problem is that when people say "I don't learn well from lectures" they tend to skip most classes, and they miss some really good ones. I had some incredible lectures in the first two years that really helped me with cardio, or derm, or just understanding basic disease process. I would have missed those nuggets if I had said that I'm going to skip it all.

Remember, you are paying a lot of money to go to medical school. I'm not saying that I don't miss lectures. But if you are paying $40,000 a year and can't stand going to 70% of your classes you should be up in arms demanding better teachers.

Finally it is worth noting that plenty of things in medicine are manditory, because even if you do great at being self motivated they have to make sure that other people aren't falling through the cracks. So grand rounds, resident lectures etc are going to be required for you pretty soon, and they really don't care if you would have learned more reading in the library.
 
jbar said:
Finally it is worth noting that plenty of things in medicine are manditory, because even if you do great at being self motivated they have to make sure that other people aren't falling through the cracks. So grand rounds, resident lectures etc are going to be required for you pretty soon, and they really don't care if you would have learned more reading in the library.
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Good point, but in order to even get to the clinical part of education, we have to pass the pre-clinical. And for some people, sitting in lecture 8 hours a day isn't the way to go.
 
sounds like bull**** to me. If you're passing all the classes, who cares how youre learning. We had talks of increasing attendance etc but in the end, the students put their foot down and told the administration to forget it. Everyone learns differently and forcing people to sit in class is counterproductive
 
Diksha said:
I dunno, I'm going to be pretty serious about attendance for at least the first few months, simply because I'm not sure exactly what I'm dealing with and I'll feel very out of the loop if I don't. I need to feel like I'm in school to stay focused 🙂
Click to expand...

I started this way and generally attended classes until I found that I was much more efficient working from home. I like to take handwritten notes so being able to play at 2x then pause as needed worked better for me than frantically scribbling notes and missing the next part of the lecture.

Thankfully, my school doesn't require attendance or I would have been in trouble. Of course it was a major adjustment when third year started and I actually had to get up and get dressed before noon 😛
 
Once our anatomy professor walked out of lecture and called a guy that hadn't shown up for class and made him come... so, I would day attendance was mandatory
 
i never go to class and i never even look at the lecture slides.

beat that
 
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