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<p>I didn’t say that doctors should stop talking to their patients. Of course they need to ask questions and diagnose. But relationship is a heavy word. I don’t think I have a relationship with my doctor, nor do I want to. I don’t know if he wants to, but I would find that a bit creepy, frankly.</p>
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<p>Trust me, if the Indian socialist culture was superior to the American capitalist culture, I wouldn’t be here.</p>
<p>[Quick</a> Response for IP Attack](<a href=“http://i55.■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■/albums/g125/lancelot_02/David%20Forum/troll_bridge.jpg]Quick”>http://i55.■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■/albums/g125/lancelot_02/David%20Forum/troll_bridge.jpg)</p>
<p>I think I should bookmark this. :)</p>
<p>"But relationship is a heavy word. I don’t think I have a relationship with my doctor, nor do I want to. I don’t know if he wants to, but I would find that a bit creepy, frankly. "</p>
<p>Do you see your doc regularly? Have any medical conditions? Relationship means many things. But I can tell you that the doc that remembers the names of Aunt Bessie’s grand kids and asks about them each appointment has a better practice with better outcomes. People need connections. I’ve seen docs at both ends of the spectrum…one has a private practice that flourishes, the other works at Kaiser. Or at a Doc in a Box.</p>
<p>It is simplistic to think that in a multi-cultural global world there is only one “right” way to raise children and that a certain ethnicity does it best. This is the huge problem I have with IP posts and with Chua’s book. Both are filled with gross generalizations about both non-Indian parents and Indian parents. Having lived in Silicon Valley for almost 20 years, I’ve been blessed to know parents of all ethnic backgrounds and found that we are much more alike with regard to our parenting than different. </p>
<p>To say that we non-Indian parents think our kids should just have fun with college (this is paraphrasing the flippant comment early in this thread) is absurd. Many of my friends (and I) gave up professional careers to raise and guide our children, working in their schools and in the community. We raised money for our public schools, added extra programs to their schools, supported their teachers. We saved and invested in their college funds and supported their extra curricular adventures. We expect our kids to go to college, work hard, graduate on time, and find a career. We don’t expect them to be Walmart greeters or working retail, or working at Starbucks (which by the way, are not the ONLY non- STEM careers in America), but we understand that these people also contribute to the US and shouldn’t be sneered at.</p>
<p>It is also incomprehensible that everyone should steer their children into STEM careers and top schools-- how would this work from a simple logistics standpoint to begin with? There are only so many slots. Wouldn’t the US college situation become like India’s then, where very few get into ITT?</p>
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<p>As someone else said, that recommendation is now in place. It’s part of step 3 of the med boards. I know someone who took it a couple of years ago now and thought it was ridiculously easy. But some people do fail it. </p>
<p>Part of the tests involves actors who have been told what symptoms they have. The young med student/doctor is supposed to take a history, suggest possible diagnoses, proposed preliminary treatment, and describe what labs they would request.</p>
<p>There are med students/doctors who order $20,000 worth of tests when presented with a common cold. There are others who ask nothing about the patient’s sex life when presented with the classic symptoms of a STD. </p>
<p>The “patients” are debriefed. Now, they are actors, so perhaps the data don’t really translate to the real world. But they found that the “patients” tended to be more likely to volunteer info of a negative kind—“my fall down the stairs was caused by the fact that I was drunk out of my mind at the time”–to doctors they perceived as non-judgmental. And they found that a doctor’s personal hygiene mattered. If a doctor smelled bad, i.e, had body odor or his/her breath stank, it affected the “patient’s” view of the physician competence. </p>
<p>So, yes, social skills matter. </p>
<p>I know that “ER” wasn’t exactly a documentary. However, I remember the episode where a suburban mom with a demanding job, a H and two kids had heart problems. Abby, the nurse turned doctor who had had problems with alcohol herself, was the only one on the staff who asked the mom if she was using–and she was. Her heart problems were caused by the fact she was using meth to cope with her her overextended life style. But none of the others looked at this woman and thought that her heart problems might be explained by drug abuse. So, none of the others asked anything about it. As soon as Abby asked, the woman broke down and admitted that she was using meth—she knew full well it probably had something to do with the heart problems, but she just couldn’t admit to the well meaning doctors and nurses that she wasn’t quite the perfect person with the perfect job and perfect family they assumed. She had to be ASKED.</p>
<p>I think that’s often the case in the medical field. As a patient, you’re not really sure what is/is not relevant. So if the doctor doesn’t ask, you don’t volunteer. So, the doctor who doesn’t become impatient with you when you volunteer some extraneous info is more likely to have you tell him or her the relevant facts.</p>
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<p>Very interesting… … IP, are you suggesting that only those from “the very top schools” will be able to find a job? If you are, please let us know which schools you are talking about. let me take a guess - HYP???</p>
<p>OP, read the link. Read the link. Let the pro’s tell you what they think about communications skills. These issues are being tackled, like it or not. Jonri is absolutely correct. I am familiar with this matter.</p>
<p>No personal attacks at your kid. You are here as a parent and the context is parents and kids. All of ours have the potential to serve as some proof our positions work- or not. </p>
<p>In other threads you’ve said you’re just an immigrant parent trying to understand our ways. You can’t understand ours if your position includes assumption about us- or us vs Asians. We are not a set of Mayflower descendents nor any other caricature. Scratch the surface and our parents, grandparents and others went through the same transition to this country that you did. And, in the process of acclimating and integrating, many came to reject the rigid social and parenting notions from what my family called, the Old World.</p>
<p>* Given the current economic climate, should parents do anything different from the traditional path?* Of course. But there is no one right answer. That’s the thing.</p>
<p>As for focusing our kids on getting into the very top schools- so what would you say to my friend’s kid who’s majoring in anthro at HYP? Or the kid studying toward a CPA career- but at a school that can’t begin to compete on typical rankings but excels as a regional business-oriented school?</p>
<p>Sort of applicable story to share, as it’s unfolding, about D2 and her theatre degree from an LAC. She has never done any sort of restaurant work, but knows she needs to get some experience as it’s one of the best jobs that complements the audition schedule of performers.</p>
<p>She got a lead on Friday night for a job at a nice restaurant looking for a hostess and was told if she came in Saturday between 2-4, she would almost likely get the job. Hostess wasn’t exactly what she wanted (doesn’t pay as well as serving), but she went in anyway, and they put her through steps one and two of a three-step interview process, then told her to come back today at 2:30 for step three. I just got a text from her that, when the manager found out she had a degree in theatre, they decided to move her up to a server position. She starts orientation tomorrow!</p>
<p>My bet is that they’d rather save the hostess position for a high-schooler and utilize her skills to charm the customers at the tables.</p>
<p>Oh, and I am thrilled for her!</p>
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<p>Seems like someone did not get a very broad liberal arts education if they do not realize that calculus is a subset of math, and math is a liberal art.</p>
<p>Indian Parent, you totally missed my point on communication skills-- again, I am less impressed with your logical reasoning skills that you are so proud of.</p>
<p>A wonderful article in this weeks NY Times magazine about medical errors. Contrary to your facile assumption, the errors dealt with in the article are not about Doctors communicating with their patients (although poor patient skills, inability to get a thorough history indeed results in a very high number of mistakes and preventable fatalities in hospitals.) But the studies are about Doctors communicating with other medical professionals- their own colleagues- particularly when they “hand off” a patient to the doctor coming on shift. Many doctors have absolutely no idea how to do this- an inability to describe the most important symptoms first, or to deal with the most critically ill patients first, and the inability to summarize the last 12 hours or so has led to thousands of deaths that should not have occurred based on well established medical protocols.</p>
<p>So no, I have no desire to be buddies with my surgeon. Nor do I want one operating on me who aced his or her standardized tests but is unable to tell the attending physician in the the recovery room what to look for, or cannot effectively summarize my case to the nurse who will take care of me for the next two days, nor can make recommendations to my follow up team upon discharge.</p>
<p>I broke a bone two years ago. I was in the ER of one of the top hospitals in my region and was never asked the last time I had something to eat, never asked the last time I had an alcoholic beverage, and although I was asked, “what prescription medication do you take” was never asked if I take herbal supplements, aspirin, or had taken an allergy pill that day. The doctors were interested in looking at my xrays and scans. Period. I had to beg the pharmacist tech who handed me my vicodin to ask a pharmacist to stop in before I left the hospital to discuss drug interactions with me. (I take OTC allergy meds). </p>
<p>So the best doctor in the world can be stumped by poor communication skills. And this is not a trumped up way to keep any particular ethnic group of out med school- this is a way to reduce mortality and medical errors.</p>
<p>As far as what parents might do, they and the students need to be informed about the job and career prospects of various majors. Many people are willing to accept worse job and career prospects to study something they are truly interested in – but if they know beforehand, they can plan more carefully (e.g. being much more careful about avoiding or minimizing student loan debt) rather than being surprised at graduation with too much debt compared to the available job pay rates.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, parents may not be that much better informed than the students, since their own experiences from a generation ago may not apply today. The enormous popularity of biology majors may be an indication – people erroneously seem to believe that biology, being a science, automatically has better job and career prospects than humanities and social studies (it generally does not, according to the few career surveys from university career centers).</p>
<p>I would be interested in Indian Parent’s reaction to bovertine’s data, which certainly addressed his professed concern at the beginning of the thread. Based on what I saw, for both men and women (the latter group probably including fewer STEM majors), the bottom quartile of people with just a bachelor’s degree was about $15,000/year better off than the bottom quartile of high school graduates with no college.</p>
<p>For men, the median terminal bachelor’s degree holder had earnings equivalent to the top quartile of high school graduates with no college. For women, the median terminal bachelor’s degree holder was doing better than the 90th percentile of high school graduates with no college.</p>
<p>Things are much closer for people with some college, but no degree, vs. high school graduates with no college at all. If you go to college but don’t get a degree, as a statistical matter it looks like it may not help you enough (it helps some) to justify the price.</p>
<p>I think a couple things emerge from this: First, in fact it looks like there is a meaningful benefit to college (without more advanced degrees), but not an absolute one. Most BA or BS holders are doing better than 80% + of the people who finished high school but didn’t get degrees. At the same time, this country has never required college degrees as a prerequisite to success. And that’s fine.</p>
<p>As far as I am concerned, Indian Parent should wean himself of two persistent fantasies:</p>
<p>(1) “Liberal arts” graduates – I think he means “humanities” – are not employable, or cannot get good jobs. This just isn’t true. It may be more difficult for them, and they may earn less at the outset and never catch up fully. And they may rely more on psychic income and job satisfaction. But they are fine.</p>
<p>(2) It matters where you go to college. This also isn’t true for most of the world. It does matter if you want to get an entry-level analyst job at Goldman Sachs, or indeed if you want to be a managing director there. It matters if you want to work at the Ford Foundation. (Where, by the way, you will find many, many graduates of top LACs.) But the vast majority of the world doesn’t give a hoot. (My wife has spent her career going back and forth between government, little scrappy nonprofits, and big prestigious nonprofits. She recently commented on how odd it felt, after a decade or so when no one ever mentioned her fancy degrees, or even knew she had them, to have it come up in conversation all the time at her current position.)</p>
<p>That doesn’t mean it doesn’t matter whether you are smart or hardworking. Those things matter. And fancy brand name colleges are a pretty good marker for smart and hardworking. Not that someone who went to a no-name college is necessarily less smart or hardworking, but you may want to look a little to be certain that is the case, whereas you might accept a Harvard degree as prima facie evidence of basic intelligence and work ethic. Of course, once someone has a track record that’s all that matters.</p>
<p>And, the trick to a better shot at getting legit employment is to graduate with some start to a resume- regardless of major. The STEM who has done research, the humanities kid who’s had internships, some allied sciences where a practicum applies- and so on. Many LACs are keenly aware of this and work their you know what’s off to collect info about and facilitate these opportunities.</p>
<p>Can I throw out that my D’s not-bright, not-hard-working friend, who is at a 3rd tier school and socializing her heart out is going to come out with a fabulous shot at a great job- because she worked alongside Dad last summer in a venture, Dad’s got umpteen dozen connections, and a few other things that have zip to do with the quality of her school or hard work.</p>
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<p>Remember that the top end of “no college” people are presumably those who went to skilled jobs where the educational requirements do not involve college (e.g. trade specific schools, self education (including sales), etc.). Also, “some college” may include people who just took a general interest course or few at the community college.</p>
<p>IP…again you are the one who is monopolizing this thread…27 posts (since 2:34 this afternoon) out of what…76? What is your purpose in starting these threads?</p>
<p>All of the articles you posted here have been posted before (and mostly in the parent’s cafe where they belong).</p>
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<p>Why would we want to focus on this? Going to the very top schools also doesn’t guarantee a job in a tight job market.</p>
<p>Even students from Ivies and other top schools are having difficulty getting jobs.</p>
<p>AND FYI…“name recognition” isn’t all there is. I just found out that our daughter’s college is in the top 20 for wage earners middle career. Pretty amazing since this school isn’t even LISTED on the USNEW listings as a top university or LAC…because it’s a “Masters university”…and that list is filled with some fabulous schools.</p>
<p>What is my responsibility as a parent…it was to encourage our two kids to follow THEIR passions, not mine…or the job market’s. They are twenty somethings with a whole life ahead of them to chase the “almightly dollar”. Personally I’m glad they aren’t in that mode.</p>
<p>They are twenty somethings with a whole life ahead of them to chase the “almightly dollar”. Personally I’m glad they aren’t in that mode.</p>
<p>hear, hear.</p>
<p>Can we please stop feeding the posters with the massive case of verbal diahhrea? We feed them and they barf it right back at us. Gross. Insufferable.</p>
<p>The real comparison, JHS, is between the top quartile of high school grads and the bottom quartile of college grads. This is the overlapping group where a member of one could easily have landed in the other depending on circumstances. </p>
<p>I have to confess that I do mean humanities when I say LA. But so do the commentators of the articles that I quoted from, as someone else pointed out. So, forgive me for the error in definition. The intent, however, stands.</p>
<p>As for your points 1 and 2, that the school doesn’t matter unless you are going for the brass ring, and LA grads don’t starve, are both valid. If you envision your kids having to scrap for a living in a dead end job, then there is indeed no need to change.</p>
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