<p>Regarding the issue of arbitration: technically, there is nothing that forbids arbitration in the medical setting. However clinical work is a heck of a lot more complicated than securities, in the sense that 1) you don’t typically have to go to a securities broker emergently; and 2) you get to pick your broker after due deliberation and at your leisure. If you have a heart attack while visiting Aunt Mary, the doctor or hospital can’t execute an arbitration agreement prior to treatment. </p>
<p>There is a big movement toward arbitration agreements between patients and primary care physicians and ob’s. These are more likely to work out since the patient can interview them and select their provider thoughtfully. The problem is that the physicians are not presenting them correctly, with the result that the courts are overturning them in many cases. They get declared invalid when a patient who made an appt 6 weeks ago shows up on the day of the appointment, and the doctor’s staff hands the patient a stack of paperwork, telling the patient to sign it all, and hand it back. When the courts uphold arbitration agreements, it’s when the patient had a chance to review the agreement in advance of needing treatment, without pressure, and with access to legal advice if they choose.</p>
<p>cobrat - Interesting, I have been given a somewhat different perspective on graduate level grades, so I’m curious what programs your experiences are from. At my grad program, a B- is passing and we are required to keep a 3.0 or above. That is, getting a B- is not a problem as long as you have an equal number of credit hours of As to balance it out.</p>
<p>I’ve been told in no uncertain terms that my GPA as a graduate student will count little in terms of finding a job in academia. It’s all about publications. In fact, one PI that I interviewed with told me that he advises his graduate students that if they are getting straight or even primarily As in their graduate courses, they aren’t dedicating enough time to their research. </p>
<p>Sorry for the tangent, but I was surprised by this because it has not been my experience. Maybe it is a social sciences thing?</p>
<p>Back to the original topic, my read on the situation is that this is a frivolous claim, but I do think it is important to recognize how much at mercy graduate students are to their professors and especially PIs. I’ve already seen a peer leave graduate school after one semester due to a falling out with her advisor, which resulted in her subsequent blacklisting in all other labs. Another easy way to end an academic career? Blow the whistle on your advisor for plagiarism, falsification of data, etc. Sad but true.</p>
<p>In the academic grad programs my friends and I were in, B was the minimum passing grade. Moreover, I knew of folks who had tension-filled meetings with their advisors and/or the dean of a university division about whether they should seriously reconsider grad school after receiving “too many Bs” in one semester/year…much less receiving one or more failing grades of B- or less. </p>
<p>One case which stuck out for me was a friend of a friend who was in a deep funk for several months because of such an encounter in an engineering department at MIT while he was pursuing an MS. At the time, I was in disbelief as a first-year undergrad as I didn’t realize grad school grading standards were set higher than undergrad…though that friend of a friend, a cousin who was also pursuing a part-time engineering(EE) MS, and other academic grad students confirmed that B- and below was considered failing in the academic grad programs they were in/knew of. In my cousin’s case, getting anything below a B- also meant he would have had to pay for that class out of his own pocket rather than having it reimbursed by his employer as it won’t pay for failed classes. </p>
<p>Found the above to be the same with friends in Masters and PhD programs in the Social Sciences and Humanities as well. </p>
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<p>While overemphasis on grades is counterproductive as you’ve said, most graduate programs also want their graduate students to maintain an “acceptable” GPA level to show their grad coursework meets standards and the student isn’t struggling too heavily to meet them. </p>
<p>While they may not necessarily require or even want straight-As, they’re also not likely to be happy with grad students pulling mostly/solely straight-Bs or worse, failing a course or few as several folks I knew of found the hard way. Pulling such a mediocre/poor performance in coursework, especially in absence of any demonstrated research potential/publications is one good way to get negative attention from advisors/departments/deans looking to weed out “weak/non-serious” students early on.</p>
<p>You believe everything you read in the newspaper happened exactly as described, adjectives and all,cobrat? No chance one side/attorney might be sensationalizing a bit? There might be 2 sides to that story… Who knows.</p>
<p>And once again… a friend of a friend and a cousin have personal experience here. Quelle surprise.</p>
<p>First hand information is most accurate. Do any of you remember the game “telephone”? The further the information was from the origin, the less likely it was to be
HEARD correctly.</p>
<p>I’m still very skeptical about the merits of the case, but the posters who have cautioned believing what we read or see in the news are onto something. On my local ABC news outlet this morning, the crawl at the bottom of the screen reported that the questioned grade was a C-plus in chemistry, of all things. Don’t see how that could possibly be true, since we’re talking about a master’s degree in counseling. Someone goofed, but God is in those details.</p>
<p>It reminded me that I have never personally been involved with a news story, including the day/time/place of Girl Scout cookie booth sales, that got absolutely every detail correct.</p>
<p>Anyone here ever have friends of friends – you know, casual acquaintances whom you barely know – talk to them in great deal about incidents that happened in their college years?</p>
<p>At the first stage of a civil case, the defense will often move to have it dismissed. The standard is for such a dismissal is that even if you take the plaintiff’s version of the facts as true, there is no case under the law. This is a tough standard, but it still happens fairly often, and really bogus cases are tossed out at this stage, saving a lot of money for the defense, because they don’t have to go through the discovery process (depositions, document production, etc.). In this case, then, the judge decided that if the plaintiff could prove her version of the facts, she could prevail.</p>
<p>I have to say that my BS detector goes off when I hear that she got a zero for participation because she swore in class and cried one time. They’ll have to build that up a lot more to prevail.</p>
Just this past week I was witness to the most bizarre thing I’ve ever seen in my adult life. In an ongoing conflict (not involving me), one party was alleging something so ludicrous that even kindly-disposted people were gently telling her that she was paranoid. But then the conspiring parties got caught out, completely busted, and it turned out to be true. So sometimes even the most unlikely things do happen.</p>
<p>I think the most likely explanation of this case is that the student who is suing AND the teacher who gave her the C are both nuts. That’s what I read between the lines from what the judge said.</p>
<p>And the zero was only out of a total of 25 points, not a 100 point scale.</p>
<p>The crux of their damages claim says:
arguing that she would make over $1.3m more as a “state certified counselor” (am guessing they mean being able to be licensed as an LPC) vs her current employment as a drug/alcohol counselor, meaning she anticipates earning about $35K/yr more a year, working for 35 years, or over $40K/ yr more over 30 yrs, as a licensed counselor. Given the current state of our MH system, this is pretty unlikely. Her “lost earning potential” seems as exaggerated as some of the other claims.</p>
Clarification- her program was offered thorugh the school’s Department of Education, so she would get a M.Ed. but she was pursiung a degree in Counseling Psych and instead got one in Human Development. It does not say that she planned to get a degree in Elementary or Secondary School counseling, so your cousins in K-12 are safe ;)</p>
<p>I think Hunt is right. It seems like this is a case of two knuckleheads butting heads.</p>
<p>And yes, this is the civil legal system that we have and we ought to be glad we have it. Believe me, you don’t want to be party to a civil case in a place like Mexico, where you can be presumed guilty. Or, as others pointed out, you definitely do not want a system wherein wealthy defendants can essentially force you to give up, after impoverishing you or worse.</p>
<p>^I think that’s why people are afraid of getting sued. They will be labeled as nut case deserved or not. According to another article, the prof suggested steps for Thorde to follow to avoid getting 0. Thorde refused and got 0. Why couldn’t she just do a few things and get in the program she wanted so badly? The judge suggested University give Thorde another chance which Lehigh refused. I wouldn’t want Thorde in my class again if it were me.</p>
<p>The bottom line is that no one will ever hire Thode after all this publicity. Would you? She seems unable to cope with adversity or respond to correction, plus she’s dragging Daddy into her affairs at 27 years of age. She also appears to be slandering her professor as a bigot on no evidence whatsoever.</p>
<p>Jym - I am curious about this C+ grade. Why do they have a process where the student gets a C+ and can’t retake it or get it completed elsewhere?</p>