[cannaceo]

My experience in medical school is that your success is based on your ability to memorize large amounts of information that is of low conceptual difficulty in short periods of time. This isn't a trait that is selected for in passing ochem. Furthermore, ochem is the last time in your undergrad or medical school training where you'll be faced with that level of conceptual rigor.

You could just as easily ask all the undergrads to train for a marathon and see who has the discipline to follow through. It would probably be more relevant because at least its health-related.

I think overall we want our doctors to have high general intelligence so we'll continue to demand o-chem. We all have our biases against the kids who couldn't pass o-chem.

[hilbert42]

"We all have our biases against the kids who couldn't pass o-chem."

Do you think that really true? I know some people who struggled with it who took it (or had to take it) as a major. Others, found it easy because they were good at remembering many details, yet others loved its systematic order.

I love the subject but the amount of detail drives me batty at times (one only has to thumb through a copy of Merck to be overwhelmed by the number of processes, etc.)—and I don't have a photographic memory.

However, I don't see that as a major issue in the long run, for if one is heavily involved with some of its specialized threads/areas then it all makes sense at that level (well sort of for much—duh, some—of the time).

Unlike physics where the rules seem clearer and more straightforward, the detail in o-chem throws people (especially those who don't have a good memory for detail). From my experience, this can become an acute problem around exam time when other subjects are competing for attention. Some people do much better in that situation than others, it doesn't mean that they're not good students, or haven't tried hard enough—or that they even dislike the subject.

It seems to me it's the nature of the beast that is actually the real culprit. Perhaps that ought to be taken into account when teaching the subject (for instance, we could offset o-chem exams from others by scheduling them to be held at a different time of year).

Just a thought.