I do not understand why it is being said that almost every assignment/ project we have is a ”make work” project. I have not yet felt that way about anything we have to do. I have wanted to be a doctor for as long as I can remember, and worked extremely hard to reach that goal. It definitely was not easy, nor stress free, but when I got that acceptance letter I was elated. Every day I feel lucky to be able to come to lecture, go to tutorials, and learn what I am passionate about. I don’t mind doing the assignments because they are interesting, and actually pretty relevant. In fact I think the DLE might be the most relevant assignment we have had all year. These advertisements are what our patients are going to see, and ask us questions about, and I think it is important to be able to learn to look at them critically and what to focus on.
The reason why Dal Medicine is pass/fail is to help us from devoting all our energy to acing exam, and engage in other aspects of medicine. I honestly did not mind having the geriatric visit the day before the MF exam. It was a great break and inspiring to hear perspectives and stories about doctors. The experience encouraged me to continue working hard and do my best on that exam, and every other challenge, so I can maybe one day become an effective physician.
So say what you want, but I don’t agree that the DLE assignment, or other projects, is a pointless ”make” work project.
That is my stand
10 Comments on “What grinds my gears……”
Alto has people fired up! I love it!
Viva la revolucione! Viva la DLE! Viva Alto!
“I think the DLE might be the most relevant assignment we have had all year. These advertisements are what our patients are going to see, and ask us questions about, and I think it is important to be able to learn to look at them critically and what to focus on.”
It’s not so much the relevance that I question, rather the delivery. The more I think about it, the less calling it a ‘make work’ assignment explains how I feel about it; I think I find it a bit juvenile. Furthermore, since we’re handing it in, we likely won’t be getting any feedback on our interpretations for several weeks (at best), by then it will be well out of mind. I’d much prefer the immediate and interactive feedback that comes with a lecture or tutorial.
As for your comment about wanting to be a doctor from a young age, I don’t think it’s fair to imply that those who question aspects of the curriculum don’t have that desire or don’t appreciation for where they are today. I’ve wanted to be a doctor since I was about 14 and now that I’m here, living that dream, I couldn’t be any happier. But I don’t feel lucky, not the least bit. I earned this. So did you and so did everyone else here. I worked my ass off to be here and I’d feel cheated if any part of it was chalked up to luck. Just as we owe the school for choosing us as medical students, they owe us for choosing to attend their program (not to mention paying for it).
As for the geriatric visit: I quite liked the visit itself. I too feel that I got a lot out of it, I just feel there was no reason for it to be scheduled when it was; I would have learned just as much on the weekend.
You end your post by saying “So say what you want…” This sort of sums up the point I was planning on concluding with: say what you want, everyone. It’s fine that you like the assignment and it’s great that you’re speaking up to express that view. Just the same, it’s great that those who don’t are expressing their views. It’s important that students feel comfortable criticizing aspects of the program they don’t like so that problems can be address and improvements made. I love the program here at Dal, but by no measure is it perfect.
That is my stand.
I don’t know. I don’t think the geriatric visit was bad. But, say that it was scheduled for the week after the final, instead of the day before, I would have been more interested in discussing an old ladies cats and their manuerisms and dispositions at more detail.
Come, Kate, you can’t be serious.
I say in future we boycott not only the DLE, but also the entire Pharm exam, and the CECT exam and the GER exam, and our entire fourth year of study, the Beijing Olympics AND the Vancouver Olympics, and the Dean’s birthday. That’ll prove that Class of 2011 doesn’t mess around.
Just to be clear and since I didn’t actually mention this in my reply: I’m not in favor of boycotting the DLE, I just prefer tutorials over assignments.
But I already bought my tickets for the Olympics…
I’ve taken a lot of flak for proposing a boycott on the DLE assignment. And I admit that my timing was pretty bad, since it doesn’t give the administration any room to negotiate.
But the point of the boycott wasn’t to show that our class doesn’t mess around, it was to show that we’re willing to stand up when we think things aren’t going well. I thought the DLE was stupid, and other people thought that as well, so I figured that we’d take a stand and make that known to the administration. Because all too often, we complain about things (valid things), but we’re either too lazy, busy, or maybe even scared to do anything about it. So say what you will, but I saw some dissension, decided to put my neck out there (and be ridiculed), and stood up for something I strongly believed. How else are things ever going to change?
On a side note, I should say that I was a huge proponent of global learning issues and stood up to my tutor (and to certain members of my group) who advocated the invidiual LIs (as taught by the Med IIs) approach. Now I’m not even going to try to take credit for the fact that we do global LIs now, I just wanted to make a point that there was enough of us convinced that global LIs were the way to go and pretty much unilaterally enforced that on our tutors. We didn’t go through committees, or our COPS rep, we effected change ourselves. And that only happened because enough of us were willing to say “This is the way we want it done” and i think tutorial has been better for it.
As for the DLE assignment, I still think it’s incredibly stupid. Why? Well firstly, the main objective of this unit is to gain an appreciation for how different drugs work. This assignment doesn’t even come close to that main objective.
More importantly, this assignment is asking us to critiqute the validity of an ADVERTISEMENT. Since when is there truth to be found in ads? If I believe that gatorade is going to make me a better atheleet, well, the admissions committee better reevaluate my application to medical school. It is the nature of advertisements to make exaggerated claims and to bend the “truth” (or present the truth from a different perspective).
That isn’t to say that drug companies don’t have an influence on the prescribing practices of doctors. I think the evidence very clearly shows that drug companies have a huge influence. Why? Well, I don’t know. Maybe it’s the drug ‘information’ pamphlets they send to family doctor’s offices. Or the sponsored talks and lunches. Or maybe it’s all the free swag and other stuff. But I betcha it isn’t the ad in the CMAJ that significantly influences our behavioiur.
And that’s the point. We don’t know as students how it is that drug companies exert their considerable persuasive power. We should be learning the strategies used by these companies to manipulate us. We should be having more lectures like the one by Dr. Reid, that shows us one strategy that drug companies use to give their product more ‘credibility’. Knowing these strategies will help us be more independent on our drug-prescribing behaviours, more so than learning that a drug advertisment in the CMAJ doesn’t quite deliver on all its promises.
Is stupid an accurate word for the DLE assignment? Maybe from some, but not for all. Either way, I don’t feel that stupid is a particular good word to use when trying to be provide constructive feedback. Calling the product of someone’s effort stupid is not constructive, it is insulting.
I get the sense that this DLE assignment was an attempt of a faculty to show how the real world relevance of learning about drugs, mechanisms of action, and how information on new and old products may be represented in the media. I also get the sense that this DLE is a generous gift of 10% for this unit.
In addition, I feel that there is value to this assignment. Critically assessing drug ads is an important skill in our profession, and I believe it is more involved than “Advertisement = lies” as your comment seems to suggest.
Despite all the points being made about the DLE assignment, I get the sense that you are displeased with something more than ‘just another assignment’. For some reason you’ve targeted this assignment do vent your frustrations. Perhaps there is a better avenue to pursue the changes in how the UME accepts and responds to constructive feedback?
Aaron, I respect your difference of opinion so let’s have a discussion on the merit of this assignment. So, let’s forget about whether 10% is generous or not, or whether me calling the assignment ’stoopid’ is a valid criticism. I think the two major aspects of this dicussion in which we have differeing points of view (potentially) is
1) The objective of this assignment
2) Whether these objectives are achieved by the said assignment.
1) I believe that the objective of this assignment is to get us to realize how drug reps (and their companies) influence our prescribing behaviours. This is supported by the fact that Dr. Sawynok strongly suggests that we visit http://www.nofreelunch.org. And if you go this website, its pretty much about the tactics used by drug reps to influence our behaviour and what we can do about it.
2) Given these objectives, I don’t think the assignment is the way to go about it. Instead of visiting the-no-free-lunch website, we’re spending most of our time doing pubmed searches or calling pharmacies to see how much the drug costs. In my last post, i presented alternatives to presenting this information that i think would be much more useful.
As for your comment about critically assessing a drug ad as being an important skill in our profession… I disagree with you. I think it’s important to be able to critically assess clinical trials (which may be influenced by drug companies), but drug ads? But I’ll admit, I don’t know. It would be interesting to see whether a family doctor ever looks at a drug ad per se and appraises it critically. But I don’t think in the future, I’ll consciously seeking drug ads as my primary source of drug information.
As for your last point, I’m displeased with more than “just another assignment”. I think the way our ‘curriculum’ is run is pretty ineffectively. We claim to be a PBL based school yet there is little emphasis placed on PBL. Having come from a different curriculum abroad, I’ve seen a better way of doing things and that frustrates me. So yes, I am venting. I’m venting at the inefficiencies at our own curriculum. I mean, how ridiculous is that we don’t have a curriculum plan?
But I digress, this is about the merit of the DLE and not the effectiveness of our medical educational program.
I’m with tuck…..
Let’s boycott the pharm exam….. it’s getting in the way of my learning.