Future doctors blowing off an ethics course because they found a loophole to pass even though they purposely failed. Remember those jokes about CEO's who never went to their ethics class at business school ? Its happening right here at Ross. Get ready future sick people of America, they'll be graduating soon. Honor system ? What honor system ? These kids promised on their honor to try to pass DPS. But when the going gets tough and they think no one is looking, they neglect their duties. You say Medical school is too hard ? This is the real world ? Wake up and smell the coffee ? The real world has Enron and Watergate. Why are you following those role models ? Integrity is what you do when you think no one is watching. Guess what grade these students have just earned in integrity.

What goes around come around. They will get caught.

I just hope we dont get a bad name from these fools. I know patients dont ask where you graduated from, but lately, many dont even have to. They can simply look up your file on the american medical association website and discover your school. No school's admissions committee can predict which students will cheat, etc, so they obviously are taking a chance on everyone they accept. Since Ross accepts a larger number of students, they see more of these foul students. At no other medical school can you walk around amongst nearly 1000 classmates! Most schools are 1/3 our size in class enrollment...keep that in mind. So like I said, I hope these foul students dont harm the name of Ross. The only thing I disagree with is the acceptance of progressively larger class sizes...I believe the current fourth semesters began smaller than any other semester here. Wish it would have stayed that way.

It's not about ethics or integrity.
It's about graded courses and a pass fail course.

Those students are not cheating. They are fully within the rules of the school, official and implied. The implied precedence was that if you failed DPS, you get to make it up with a paper. If that option is no longer available, it should have been stated in the beginning of the course, not clarified after the second mini.

Using "loop holes" in the rules is as American as applie pie and trashing a public bathroom. As a doctor, you will have a few favorite tax loop holes yourself. Does that make you an evil person for not contributing more than you have to, towards the national treasury ?

The low MPSs show that this class needs all the help it can get. We're having a hard enough time becomming doctors at all, much less worrying about becomming a good doctor or bad doctor.

Medical school is also about managing your resources. Later we'll have to triage the materials and time to help the most people possible, knowing that we can't help them all. Consider this part of our training.

One thing for sure, getting a C in a graded class and an A in a passfail class is like going bald and growing hair out your butt. No one will notice and you're a dork if you bring it up.

__________________
- the Count

Count Baron Von Macula de Generations.
Sir Loin of Beef
Sir Rosis of Liver
Earl of Westershishtershire

LOL!

I agreed with all your points, Count. But that last comparison is utter genius!

You are totally right about DPS; for being an "ethics" class, it certainly is not organized or helpful at all. Ross should be more ethical in providing us with the time and benefit of a properly taught class instead of giving us useless busy work and openly threatening to fail us in DPS. It is no surprise that most students don't go to it; even the studious ones know that the time is better spent sleeping or studying (or posting on ValueMD). The last thing you want to hear in the morning is Vogel ranting and raving about why his brand of Nazi medicine is the only way to go. Way to teach how to be a doctor: give us a guy who denounces any form of alternative therapy than his own, and puts you down in class if you disagree with him in any way. No wonder he didn't make it through med school in the first place.

All I have to say to DPS lecturers (as well as a lot of professors here) is: check your ego at the door. You are here to teach, not preach and insult. Is it a surprise that a lot of students are disillusioned and have no compuction about peeing all over the toilets? I think not. Students are a mirror of their teachers (which includes their parents and medical school professors).

Having to repeat first semester because you failed DPS? Jeez, you might as well quit and start rotating hot dogs at the local 7-11.... it is an unorganized mess of a class, and should not be graded. Ross needs to get its act together in this class before even thinking about changing the grading policy, even if there is a new course director. If you want to grade students in it, make it worthy of our time!

Ah! Finally a link between peeing and teaching...

So, when one checks out a school, check the washrooms.

The women's washrooms too?

When will we get the rest of our assignemnts back?

Ethics is an important class in medical school, but I think DPS is a waste of time especially at Ross. I'm not complaining because I'm failing DPS. I'm acutally getting an A. But did I learn anything new? I'm sure 99.9% of first semester students agree that they really didn't learn anything new. The way the class is set up does not really encourage or facilitate a learning environment. Every Tuesday I waste an hour sitting in the seminar, especially if it's Dean Wagner. All he ever does is grill the group that is giving the presentation instead of facilitate the discussion of the assigment. Does it help the class to sit in the lecture hall feeling pity toward the group. What use is doing the assignment and not being able to discuss it? All he has to do is give them a failing grade for the presentation at the end if they are not prepared. He doesn't not have to humiliate them in front of the whole class. That's like childplay and is not characteristic of a professional or someone you look up to like a professor. All that is doing is taking away valuable learning time from the whole class. I know Dean Wagner's point about not being prepared, but the way he handled it is a lose-lose situation. And about the assignment, what was he thinking? We have way to much things to worry about such as the Shelf and finals. He's just now handing back assignements (at least 5 or 6), a couple of weeks before the final and expect us to redo it if it wasn't up to par? My group actually only got a couple back, which means one week before the shelf we would have to work on the DPS assignment if we failed it. DPS is a joke the way it's being taught and handled. I actually enjoyed the first week of class when Dr. Kay was teaching. Having said that, I definitely think that it's the professors who either make it a pleasant learning experience or make it a very very bad one. Everyone was excited the first week and we actually learned something! If this is how the class will be next semester and it will be graded, I feel sad for the incoming class of September.

DPS is a pain in the butt to take but it's not meant to be difficult. Yes, Dean Wagner tend to be confrontational at times but he's human and he's probably doing his best. Don't worry about ethics now, you'll get all the things they teach you and a whole lot more in 3rd. Just focus on Histology, Biochem, and genetics. Learn those information well and you will have a good foundation for later semesters and possibly the rest of your lives. Anyhow, if you think it is tough now, just wait 'till 3rd. I hear clinicals are brutal as some attendings and nurses have been known to make people cry and then they'll call you a crybaby! Oh well, as our well-meaning class rep. said earlier this semester, "just do your best".