Science has an editorial by Thorp bemoaning the need for Organic Chemistry as a sine qua non for Medical School. As the author notes:
Although there has been some progress, many faculty still refuse to update their teaching methods in the face of copious data showing how teaching could be improved, particularly toward the success of women and underrepresented groups. Universities have failed to deal with gaps in learning caused by remote teaching due to COVID-19 in high school and early college, which is a temporary problem, but the inability to deal with it is a readout of the apathy that universities have for dealing with the general issues.There’s only one way out. Everyone in this system—the administrators, the faculty, the medical schools, and the medical regulatory bodies—need to state the plain truth that the undergraduate education system that prepares students for medical school is broken. Quit selling a bill of goods to ambitious young people and their parents that the research universities offer a value-adding path to a career in medicine.
I would take it one step further, When MIT started the HST program they isolated the MIT classes from the Harvard classes. Why. My opinion is that the classic Medical School program teaches What and How. Namely what is the diagnosis and how does one treat it. The MIT students kept asking Why. You don't really see that in Med School. I see that in many current physicians educated in the now classic manner. Part of the reason is to just go from patient to patient. It is really hard to address the Why. Why does this patient have this intractable itch? Instead the training is to find a what and then a how as prescribed somehow in the Tablets of the trade.
Now where does Organic Chemistry fit in? Simply, for those of us who have taken it? Simply in the second semester you memorize dozens of 19th century German reactions found mostly by massive trial and error. The current teaching attempts to place a patina of scientific understanding by moving electrons around but frankly that is just nonsense. It just adds to the memory burden. If the goal of OC is to assess memorization then perhaps Latin IV is just as good! Rarely does a physician ever use these German reactions. Biochemistry is fine as is Phys Chem, but OC is often just a waste.
Now what makes a good physician? Well it depends on what one wants. If the What and How is all we need for the local doc, then we need the technicians to deal with that. If however we have a serious issue then the Why is often needed. For example, Oncology and Oncologists are like cooks. They are handed a diagnosis, go to the cook book which says what therapy to use, and then just monitor the patient through the ascribed process. Not much is any Why here. In contrast Neurologists must find Whys often.
Thus perhaps a good engineering undergraduate is often better than anything else. At least it was in my view.
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