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Doctors 'Cheating' On Board Certifications

Posted by Soulskill on from the bad-handwriting-a-convenient-excuse dept.

Maximum Prophet writes "After taking board exams, doctors have been routinely getting together to remember and reproduce as much of the exam as they can. These notes are then bound and reproduced. According to the American Board of Dermatology, the exams are protected by copyright laws, and any reproduction not approved by the board is illegal. While I have no doubt that the Board believes this, and pays lawyers to believe it as well, I don't think they understand copyright. Perhaps they should invest in better testing methods."

4 of 238 comments (clear)

  1. IT Certificate by anti11es · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Keep it up and getting your MD degree will be worth about as much as most IT certificates. You can buy copies of most of those tests online from companies that somehow steal the cert test, probably using the same method these doctors are.

    1. Re:IT Certificate by TWX · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Uh, there's this thing called Residency, which is a big difference compared to IT work...

      --
      Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
    2. Re:IT Certificate by solidraven · · Score: 5, Insightful

      And this is why it's fun to live in a European country with public healthcare with excellent coverage and small waiting times. Sure we pay a bit extra in income tax to support it, but it's totally worth it when you get sick.

  2. Re:MD degree is to long and the school mindset may by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Bullshit is entirely subjective. I know engineers who are focused on engineering to the extent that they know (and care) nothing about anything else. So maybe you have a point. People like that do the bare minimum work necessary to pass their out-of-major courses and retain nothing. Maybe it's not worth teaching some people anything but what they will most predictably use in their career.

    But a doctor is more than a technician. He or she is in the business of caring for people. A one-dimensional engineer might be competent and get the job done, but he might lack in creativity -- I know plenty like that. A one-dimensional doctor doesn't understand his patients. He doesn't understand that two patients with the same disease may express themselves in very different ways or that two patients that *say* the same thing about their condition may be describing different systems. He may not understand the psychological aspects of living with disease. Etc.

    The more a doctor knows about PEOPLE, the better it enables him to practice MEDICINE.

    To some extent, the same is true of engineers and programmers. You might know how to perform a certain task, but where do you learn to understand what customers want? They sure to hell don't teach that in your engineering classes and it damn sure is important to know.