Why Do Unfit Doctors Not Fail Medical School?
The practice of not failing medical students who excel in the classroom but lack clinical intuition, communication skills and bedside manner necessary to be a good doctor is harming the state of patient care, according to an article in The New York Times.
In the third year of medical school, students leave the lecture halls and begin to work with patients and other clinicians in specialty-based courses called "clerkships," where they are evaluated by senior doctors.
The problem lies in the fact that grading systems in these clerkships are subjective and not standardized, leaving faculty with little or no training or support in evaluating students while in the real world of medicine. Over 40 percent of directors of internal medicine clerkship courses in the mid-1990s admitted they had passed students who should have failed their course because they had difficulty distinguishing what a "minimum standard" would be.
"There have to be unified, transparent and objective criteria," said Dr. Sara B. Fazio, who leads the internal medicine clerkship at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston. "We will all be patients one day. We have to think about what kind of doctors we want to have now and in the future." Read the full details here:
Why Failing Med Students Don't Get Failing Grades
Medical malpractice starts at the training of medical students. What is clear is failing students do not always get failing grades. In the end, this results in failure to diagnose, birth injury, cerebral palsy and wrongful death cases.
If you or a family member believe you have a medical malpractice case, contact Crandall & Pera Law today for a free case evaluation.