Thank you Rick Tarara and George Spagna Jr. You are on the same page I'm
on.
I'm proud of my graduates, and they are proud to have come here to
school. They are successful in jobs, grad school, med school, dental
school, etc. They come back at Homecoming and May Day and for class
reunions and thank me for helping them get into the next phase of their
education and life. I not only get thanked for the physics and
chemistry I taught, but also for teaching them to write, and also for
general guidance.
I do have medical doctors and dentists tell me they have found the
physics and chemistry worthwhile. A pre-dental student who did a lot of
complaining about taking physics while he was here, sent me a letter to
tell me he was wrong to complain, and he has found the physics quite
useful. [Dentists do a fair amount of study of materials science.
Thermal conductivity, strength, adhesive strength, etc. are some of the
things they deal with. He said dental school and practice would be more
difficult without the physics.]
Therefore, rather than quit and find another job... Rather than trying
to fix something that ain't broke... Rather than agreeing with the MDs
who think med schools should abandon math, physics and chemistry
requirements... I am going to defend what I do and defend the
requirement of these courses for premeds.
I'm hoping the AMA and medical schools will ignore the doctors who say
physical science courses are not important for doctors. However, if
they don't ignore this, I recommend we defend the appropriateness of our
courses. We should not tacitly let them do away with these
requirements, and we certainly should not agree with them that we are
doing a lousy job of teaching.
Michael D. Edmiston, Ph.D.
Professor of Chemistry and Physics
Bluffton University
Bluffton, OH 45817
(419)-358-3270
edmiston@bluffton.edu