<p>Why is the complaint about orgo and not physics?</p>
<p>My $0.02: The hand surgeon would know things relative to his field. However, His knowledge of the anatomy of the head would be inferior to that held by a first-year medical student. Because the first-year needed to know it for the test, and the surgeon doesn’t. The skull is not his business, other than how it can affect the hand.</p>
<p>As for the wanting to know the bare minimum jab, we complain when we learn information that is valuable only for the sake of the boards at the end of 2nd year. For instance, we learned in metabolism why IV fructose should never be used. However, wouldn’t that mean that the situation would never come up? If the stuff causes hypoglycemia universally, hospitals won’t carry it. But it will likely be on the boards, so we can know it and get the question right on a test. There’s too much inertia in the cycle.</p>
<p>Sakky: The idea of MDs teaching college courses is great, but there are only 100-some med schools attached to colleges. What about kids that go to other schools?
I would imagine that GPA and MCAT usually correlate for most admitted med students, so perhaps adcoms are better at seeing through the gamed GPA than you give them credit for. Schools want to see an MCAT and a transcript to see if there’s a discrepancy: High GPA, low MCAT -> you may have taken the easy route through college. Vice versa-> you might be smart but lazy. There is space in the personal statement and interview to explain any discrepancies. For example, my verbal MCAT was three points lower than my other two sections. Adcom asked why. “Broke my ankle the week before the test and was on percocet. I fell asleep during that section and didn’t make it through the last passage and a half.” Mystery solved.</p>
<p>Grade inflation and deflation has its own threads, so I won’t go there, other than to say that every person I’ve ever spoken to thinks that his school’s orgo class was the hardest. Usually people find a way to have good grades and a good MCAT. Or they have to explain why.</p>