Slashdot Mirror
Why Organic Chemistry Is So Difficult For Pre-Med Students
Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes "Science writer and 42-year old pre-med student Barbara Moran writes in the NY Times that organic chemistry has been haunting pre-meds since 1910, when the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching released a landmark report calling for tougher admission standards to medical school and for medical training based on science. "The organic chemistry on the MCAT is chemistry that students need to know to succeed in medical school," says Karen Mitchell, senior director of the MCAT Program. Basically, orgo examines how molecules containing carbon interact, but it doesn't require equations or math, as in physics. Instead, you learn how electrons flow around and between molecules, and you draw little curved arrows showing where they go. This "arrow pushing" is the heart and soul of orgo. "Learning how to interpret the hieroglyphics is pretty easy. The hard part is learning where to draw the little arrows," writes Moran. "After you draw oxygen donating electrons to a positive carbon a zillion times, it becomes second nature." But the rules have many exceptions, which students find maddening. The same molecule will behave differently in acid or base, in dark or sunlight, in heat or cold, or "if you sprinkle magic orgo dust on it and turn around three times." You can't memorize all the possible answers — you have to rely on intuition, generalizing from specific examples. This skill, far more than the details of every reaction, may actually be useful for medicine. "It seems a lot like diagnosis," says Logan McCarty. "That cognitive skill — inductive generalization from specific cases to something you've never seen before — that's something you learn in orgo." This takes a huge amount of time, for me 20 to 30 hours a week writes Moran. This is one thing that orgo is testing: whether you have the time and desire to do the work. "Sometimes, if a student has really good math skills, they can slide through physics, but you can't do that in orgo," says McCarty ."
It's funny because organic chemistry was one of the easiest classes for me. Many of my classmates thought I was insane but I enjoyed it. Now P-Chem, that beat me up in left me in an alley for dead.
I browse on +1 so AC's need not respond, I won't see it.
Problem is the AMA and the government control the number of residency spots. So if you get more applicants you don't get more doctors, they just make the testing harder. Doctors like this because it creates an artificial "doctor shortage" and keeps their wages up.
Just the fact that they call it "orgo" tells me it's weird. Where does the second O come from?
Frustration. You can't scream a "g" in frustration. Try orggggggggggggggggggggggggggg as opposed to orgooooooooooooooooooooooooo.
It's similar to Khannnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn versus Khaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
In many respects, its unfortunate that chem majors (I was one, too) take O-chem alongside pre-med students.
The most useful aspect of O-chem is learning to interpret the various spectroscopic results used to characterize organic compounds (particularly NMR spectra). This information is quite useless, however, to those who are not chem majors. We instead spend an inane amount of time learning hundreds of chemical reactions that neither the pre-meds nor the chem majors really need to know.
Even then, the course doesn't have to be as difficult as it's made to be, which I finally figured out the first time I taught organic chemistry. We simply make it that difficult to weed students out. Many students who probably would have made fine chemists saw their chemistry careers end in Organic II---all in the name of convincing a lot of pre-meds that they were never going to become doctors.
After having talked to numerous doctors on whom have been part of admission selection committees for different medical schools this is the consensus I have reached as to why Orgo is required for medschool. Orgoanic chemistry is looked at as a weed out class. In particular, they believe that good grades from second semester (quarter 2,3) in Orgo prove the ability of the student to be able to solve complex problems because the later part of most organic chemistry courses focus on synthesis. They believe that good grades in second semester orgo will translate into a doctors ability to see the long term solution and that good grades are indicative of an ability to plan a multistep process for patient recovery.
Have Walter White teach it.... where do I sign up?
I've graduated from med school about 9 years ago and I still remember organic chemistry just as if I've closed the book yesterday. I had to learn it in high-school, I had to learn it in medical school. It is hard to learn, but it does help a lot. Fact is you can't know all the drugs that are out there being prescribed. But if you ask the patient for the box and have a look at the active ingredient name, you can immediately place it in one of the major groups. At least you will not confuse a pain relief drug with a psychotrope or an anti-hypertensive. It's just as useful as most of the disciplines studied in medical school. It helps a future doctor form reflexes towards substance recognition that will baffle even some of their colleagues and impress the hospital pharmacist :)
That is incorrect. It has nothing to do with "would", but rather an alternative form of "will" which was "wol", quite common in Middle English (Chaucer uses it a lot).
Wrong. Wrong. wrong.
Sometimes, if a student has really good math skills, they can slide through physics, but you can't do that in orgo," says McCarty
1) Orgo? WTF? There is no course in the chemistry curriculum called "orgo". It's o-chem, or organic, or organic chemistry, if you're not into the whole brevity thing. There is no orgo.
2) "You can do blah in physics, but you can't do that in o-chem???" Please, deity, make sure this person never becomes a doctor. Or a parent.
Chemistry is not magic. It is not random. It is not subject to the whims of mystical forces. The atoms and molecules one studies in o-chem are governed by the rules of physics. Those rules are described in the language of math. It's like saying knowing English will help you read plays, but it won't help you with Shakespeare.
If you have the background, and are good at math, then pchem is easy. But orgo is just lots and lots of memorization.
What is this I don't even know. I expect that sort of attitude from someone who hasn't taken p-chem, but you should know better. Especially if you take p-chem before o-chem.
As for memorization, I somehow managed to get through organic without it. Even before years of /. and fark wrapped my fragile little mind my memory was shiat. In high school trig there were a bunch of equations we were supposed to memorize--sin2a, cos(a+b), cos(a-b), that sort of stuff. Well, like I said, my memory was shiat. Turns out, if you remember the definitions of sin, cos, and tan, all those other equations and identities can be derived.
So that's what I did. I memorized those 3 definitions, and derived everything else as needed during the exam.
Organic is the same way. Sure, you could get through by rote memorized of a list of facts and statements without bothering with understanding. But the same could be said of just about any course or class.
But it's a lot easier (or it was for me at least) to remember a small set of simple rules, and then apply them. Of course, that requires a step beyond rote memorization to some actual understanding of those rules to know how and when to apply them. So where do you get those rules and that understanding?
Take p-chem. Take p-chem first, and then o-chem. O-chem is just an application of the rules you'll learn in p-chem. O-chem requires no more memorization then any other college course (and perhaps less).
It's all about charges--electrons are negative, hydrogen ions are positive. Like charges repel, different charges attract. If you have a positive charge, that's where your electrons will go. If you have a negative charge, that's where your hydrogen will go. Draw arrows as needed.