[senortumnus]

I appreciate your effort in this post. I am a practicing physician and also a person who majored in biochemistry, rather than the more pre-med focused biology/chemistry major offered at my institution. My opinion is that organic chemistry is a great window into the complexity of biologic chemistry that happens to be the foundation of medicine.

Is it necessary for all physicians to peer through this window in order to practice quality medicine? Perhaps not. But does it give us an appreciation, and humility for, the astounding complexity of biologic systems that underpin all clinical interventions? Ideally so. At some point during pre medical training there should be - to be blunt - a filter that separates adaptable and bright students from those who hazily wish to pursue medicine but do not have the capacity to do so at a high level.

There are many career paths for those who can not adapt and learn at the high level which has been traditionally been required to complete medical school. We can, as a society, either lower the standards or maintain that high level of requirement that has been the badge of "MD." My bias of course, having completed 13 years of education after high school, is to recommend that we do not lower the standards of the MD process. The system, as it has evolved to date, has plenty of opportunity for those who desire less rigorous training, for example nurse practitioner and physician assistant tracks. There is still a place in this world for highly trained and motivated individuals who wish to be the best in their field. Signed, a professional who benefited from the strong institutions that create medical doctorates.

[hilbert42]

The position you've put about medicine is essentially as I've come to understand it having viewed it from the outside.

Had I wanted to do medicine I've no doubt that I'd have thought twice about it given the long and tenacious path I'd have had to have taken to get there. My interests were always in basic science and engineering, so I was never in the position of having to make those awkward decisions.

That said, it wasn't a completely black and white process, at one stage I started pharmacy but changed my mind, that may be obvious from my earlier comments.

I've no doubt that filtering is needed to weed out the less motivated but as I've said elsewhere, I've concerns about how it's done. If good people are weeded out because of say their circumstances then society loses the benefit of their input.

My opinion about organic chemistry is that it is a tremendous subject and I have an abiding interest in it. I think this puts me in a good position to appreciate the dilemma medical people face when confronted with the subject. As you know it can get complicated quickly and getting to grips with it can take a lot of work and time—time that many cannot afford to commit.

Thanks for your thoughtful comments.

[cannaceo]

While I agree that we shouldn't lower the standards of the MD process I am not convinced that proficiency at organic chemistry is predictive of physician quality. I'd rather see physicians studying computer science than ochem as tech seems more relevant to the future of medicine. To that extent I'm always willing to entertain reform.

[hilbert42]

"I am not convinced that proficiency at organic chemistry is predictive of physician quality"

Reckon that's true from the very small sample of my own doctors. It would be nice if we had anecdotal info from MDs who reckon it was actually useful and the reason for why it was.