NYU organic chemistry professor terminated for tough grading

I've not studied medicine but I've some organic chemistry knowledge thus I've come across this bane of contention previously from others. It doesn't take long for organic chemistry to get bogged down in technical details that I reckon wouldn't be needed by most medical professionals. For instance the angle formed between a benzene ring and an amine group after bonding. That's useful info to chemists but to few others.

But where to we draw the line and how do we determine whether it's actually relevant? I'll make an observation on that question at the risk of encroaching upon your profession with an example (please bear with me I'm not a professional pharmacologist).

Let's start with a well-known example: the metabolism of ethanol by the liver. If I put on a chemist's hat then I'd not be expected to know much more than that the liver employs enzymes to partially oxidize ethanol to acetaldehyde thence from there to acetic acid and finally water and carbon dioxide.

However, if I specialized in the area then I'd need to know much more such as the Gibbs free energy for each metabolic stage and calculating that suddenly becomes very complicated, it'd require me to know much more about the liver's physiology and its enzyme processes. If so, then I'd posit the level of knowledge I'd require would be more than would be expected of you if you were, say, a general practitioner.

Viewing it from your side, you'd have to know enough basic organic chemistry to make sense of the various stages the liver goes through to reduce ethanol to H2O and CO2 such as the basics of Gibbs free energy as ethanol's metabolism provides the body with energy thus you'd have to have an overview of how enzymes go about their work—alcohol dehydrogenase/ADH for instance.

This is where drawing lines gets complicated. If we treat an enzyme as a black box that does various things then we can map out an overall picture of how the liver does its job and perhaps that's all the average practitioner needs to know (I'm not familiar with the extent of that requirement). However, if you are required to have a thorough understanding of how enzymes work then a much greater knowledge of organic chemistry would be required. For instance, the chemistry of alcohol dehydrogenase/ADH and it's complicated, so too the final stage of ethanol's elimination wherein acetyl coenzyme A is involved.

From an outsiders' perspective, it doesn't seem reasonable to me that to do their job that those on the first line of medicine would need chemistry to a depth required to understand how acetyl-CoA works at the molecular level. That would seem a waste of time.

On the other hand a basic understanding of organic chemistry seems necessary to have a cognizant overview of the workings of the liver.

Looking in from the outside it's a difficult call. My own doctor usually writes prescriptions in a drug's proprietary name, on occasions he asks if I want the cheaper generic version to which I always answer yes, he's then been been known to ask me for its chemical name having forgotten it (for some unclear reason he seems to assume that I know more chemistry than he does).

Perhaps this is an indicator that many if not most doctors practice drug/pharmacy medicine at a much higher level than that of molecular chemistry—if so then it would seem that having to have detailed knowledge of the subject at this low level is unnecessary.

Apologies if that seemed a little short on in depth. I intended more but omitted some relevant stuff for brevity (there's more to discuss about this topic but there's practical limits to that on HN). Also, as my profession is electronics, my emphasis may seem a little off not having the same familiarity with the issues as you would have.

You can take the class again for a better grade, but the bad grade stays on your record and factors into your GPA. Retroactively withdrawing eliminates the bad grade.

It's quite a while since I was at university and back then there would have been very little chance of a professor being fired that easy or on those grounds.

That said, back then, the system was very fair. Students were treated with respect and often given benefit of the doubt. There were appeals mechanisms in place if students failed and they could do so if they thought they had good reasons to appeal, and so on.

Looking in at much of academia these days I see a volatile, messy quixotic buisness and I'm glad I'm not there. (It's still not fully clear to me how things have gotten so off the rails in recent years.)

In direct answer to your question I'd repeat what I said above with respect to my university experience. The system should be fair and flexible and students should always be given a chance to do better next time.

Is it necessary for all physicians to peer through this window in order to practice quality medicine? Perhaps not. But does it give us an appreciation, and humility for, the astounding complexity of biologic systems that underpin all clinical interventions? Ideally so. At some point during pre medical training there should be - to be blunt - a filter that separates adaptable and bright students from those who hazily wish to pursue medicine but do not have the capacity to do so at a high level.

There are many career paths for those who can not adapt and learn at the high level which has been traditionally been required to complete medical school. We can, as a society, either lower the standards or maintain that high level of requirement that has been the badge of "MD." My bias of course, having completed 13 years of education after high school, is to recommend that we do not lower the standards of the MD process. The system, as it has evolved to date, has plenty of opportunity for those who desire less rigorous training, for example nurse practitioner and physician assistant tracks. There is still a place in this world for highly trained and motivated individuals who wish to be the best in their field. Signed, a professional who benefited from the strong institutions that create medical doctorates.

In undergrad chemistry my lab partner was a med student whereas I was doing science and engineering. In essence, there were unavoidable common core threads for everyone.

I'm not saying that's good or bad but it was problem for my co chem student not because he was doing poorly but because he was overloaded (his workload was definitely much heavier than mine).

His experience is the reason why I'm not in favor of that approach because it also filters out good students who do badly for other reasons. For example, some students have family commitments and don't have as much time available for study. Others have less time because they have to travel long distances to lectures.

Take my situation, for a part of my studies I used to travel the better part of 200 miles round trip by train and bus each day. I'd leave home when it was dark and also arrive home when dark—that was nearly 6 hours traveling per day.

Making up time studying on the train wasn't an option as I'd just fall asleep. If I'd been doing medicine and that weeding out process adopted then I'd not have stood a chance.

Edit: at a different period when I eventually managed to get closer to uni my flatmate was also a med student and he too always had a much heavier workload than I did.

If I'd been a med student under those conditions, I reckon I'd have wanted to ditch organic chemistry if given half a chance.