The next episode in the most-publicized board exam ever:
Sophie Currier, the Harvard medical student who sued because she wanted time to pump breast milk during a licensing exam, will postpone taking the exam, her lawyer said Wednesday.Currier had planned to take the exam this week after Massachusetts Appeals Court Judge Gary Katzmann ordered that she should get the extra time. But a three-judge panel of the court on Tuesday stayed Katzmann’s order, promising a ruling by next Wednesday.
Related posts:
- Sophie Currier wins her appeal
- A nursing mother wants extra exam time
- The breast-feeding medical student loses again
- Non-medical news of the day
- An abortion fails, mother sues doctors for costs to raise her child
- Losing a $14M malpractice verdict
- Adoption on condition of gastric bypass surgery
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{ 12 comments }
These are not hard exams; she needs to take the damn test and take her lumps. If she doesn’t know her stuff then that’s what the exam is there to establish.
caveat: the exam is not hard for someone who finds the study of the sciences natural, and interesting, who has reasonable study habits, recognizes that there is a large body of knowledge to memorize and does so, and can apply this knowledge by answering questions and problems that are worded differently than the textbook so as to prove a level of understanding of the relationships of the information beyond mere rote memorization.
These tests are a painful endurance. I cannot imagine the horror of actually wanting more time to spend with the now proverbial #2 pencil.
She is going to lose with the 3 judge panel. The original judge did not even use the proper legal test to determine whether she was being discriminated against.
So she has to take the test in discomfort – there are many many people taking these tests in discomfort – that is the nature of these tests!
I cannot imagine a panel of judges who had to take the bar exam allowing a scammer like this one to get away with this nonsense.
Charles Krauthammer did it in a wheelchair, paralyzed in a diving accident his freshman year at Harvard Med.
Sorry, but all these endless “accomodations” are nothing more than legalized cheating for well-connected frauds.
The whole system is utterly corrupt and is generating dangerous incompetents in many professional fields.
jeez this is an exam of basic ability. It is there to weed out the shouldn’t be docs./ What the heck is she going to do taking the path certification exam. More importantly, what is she goiing to do when she is in REAL STRESS SITUATION as a doc and has to perform NOW.
Kevin, you can’t state that there isn’t any support for Sophie within the medical community if you refuse to post the other views.
Many posters seem to missing the fact that Ms. Currier applied for (and won in the 2nd ruling) more BREAKtime, not more test time, for pumping. When she goes out for a break, she can’t come back and change her answers. And she doesn’t get more time to take the test (just the ability to stop the clock while she pumps). Pumping isn’t going to make her any smarter, just more comfortable, and as the judge ruled, put her on an even playing surface with the men and non-lactating women taking the exam.
In response to meadow the lawyer:
Other test takers are allowed adequate time and privacy to excete their bodily fluids. Lactating women deserve the same accomodation that other students get for their physiologic needs. The NBME does not make test takers use glass-walled toilets. “Accomodating” Ms. Currier by making her pump in a glass-walled examination room is offensive and wrong.
To all the people making such clever “milking it” puns: maybe you should attach your name to those posts so that the Onion and the Daily Show can contact you if they need writers. Oh, was that a personal comment–after reading your pained and angry Sophie-has-done-me-wrong-she’s-so-entitled blah blah blah ANONYMOUS comments: you sound like a bunch of angry petty people.
For the person with stomach flu during the boards, I’m sorry you had that experience. It must have been uncomfortable. But, do you really think other people should have to suffer because you did? The big reason NBME is going to fight this tooth and nail is they currently make no accomodations for any condition that is not directly covered by the ADA. If Ms. Currier’s case stands, it will be the tip of the iceburg for them. And that will be a good thing and not a “danger to the American public” They will have to show the same compassion toward students that we as a medical profession show patients. What a novelty! The American Board of Family Medicine allows untimed pumping breaks for nursing moms (in addition to the scheduled lunch break everyone gets).
To anonymous who posted on MassachusettsMom site: your clinical example is absurd. If a cancer patient dies on the table it’s not because of the pathologist. This is the same type of inflammatory arguement the NBME is trying to make when they say they need to protect the safety of the American public. The USMLE is just one part of the checks and balances in place to moniter a student’s performance and to assure competency.
As I wrote in my response to that post, many work places accomodate lactating physicians without difficulty, and in such settings, women are able to plan ahead, pump at appropriate times, and make coverage arrangements with colleagues, who will hopefully be more compassionate and understanding than this web community is.
To tiny shrink: you obviously know nothing about breastfeeding. Could you pee extra today so that you don’t have to pee on Saturday? Ok and then on Saturday (after you’ve done all that peeing ahead of time), why don’t you drink a bunch of water and then “delay (peeing) for the few (that’s NINE) hours of the test each day.”
About a career in pathology: reading a slide or looking at specimens is really different from reading a book. Being a slow reader doesn’t make someone dumb — it should be pretty obvious that Ms. Currier isn’t dumb – considering that she got into 2 of the most prestigous schools in the country and got a combined MD Ph.D in 7 years (especially since most Ph.D’s take 5-6 years, see NY times article 10/2/07). People want the best/most accurate cancer diagnosis, not the quickest. People who like to make split second decisions go into emergency medicine. The rest of us pick specialties where we can take the time we need to make the best decision possible for our patients.
She should stop crying over spilt milk and stop this cheesy lawsuit.
Milking the system….
To crazy lactation woman: I take it you’ve never heard of frozens that need to be read intraoperatively in order to finish the surgery.
I know — we’ll just tell the patients to wait longer on the OR table to accomodate her.
I also notice you made no mention of the fact that she ALREADY HAS accomodations for her alleged ADHD. So she’s requesting MORE accomodations. “Milking it” is being generous.
Cremina87:
You skirt the real point by needlessly taking on the ad hominem attacks.
Lactation, like pregnancy, is not a disability. It is a choice, and variably and occassionally an inconvenience. Accommodations like extra BREAK time[your emphasis] for something that is inherently not a disability is unfair to the other examinees who might just as easily want extra break time for other personal reasons or problems that might be a distraction during a test. Having a cold, back pain, tinnitus or a headache could be just as much a misery for an examinee as breast turgor; unfortunately those have to be accommodated in the time allowed, and not with extra break time. That is the nature of standardized testing: examinees are supposed to be allowed the same amount of time and are expected to answer the same questions.
Ms Currier may have a disability with her dyslexia, but that is besides the point; for that problem accommodations have already been allowed her. But both she and you have bought into the idea that normal bodily functions like lactation are equally deserving of extra accommodation. Making a court case of it muddies the issue by trying to steamroll fair and uniform policy with agenda-driven and bad court rulings. It is a disservice to the rest of the examinees who may have to suck up whatever private discomforts they have, something examinees have always had to do, while Ms. Currier gets to enjoy her advocate-organization-funded publicity with her mother and child feature photos.
-Okulus
Cremina87:
re:Many posters seem to missing the fact that Ms. Currier applied for (and won in the 2nd ruling) more BREAKtime, not more test time, for pumping.
She has ALREADY had her test time increased. This is an exam of basic ability
“…got a combined MD Ph.D in 7 years (especially since most Ph.D’s take 5-6 years, see NY times article 10/2/07)”
All you have shown is you nothing about the difference between going through a Ph.D vs an MD/Ph.D program. MD/Ph.D’s have to finish in 7 years (with rare exceptions). They ALL do. Talk to people in the biology Ph.D programs. The Ph.D in basic science is MUCH more rigorous than the Ph.D portion of an MD/Ph.D. The combined program’s all but guarantee’s that you finish in 7 years (unless you screw up). Sophie would have been atypical if she had NOT finished in 7 years. Most Ph.D’s have fairly strong opinions of the PhD side of MD/Ph.D and let me tell you, it is not good. An MD is about learning a set mass of knowledge/skills in a given time frame in preparation for residency (and picking a residency of course). A Ph.D is an open ended endevour of asking and attempting to answer a scientific question. As I have both (and I did one after the other), I can tell you that I felt the Ph.D was actually harder (though residency worse than either) and BY DEFINITION is an open ended arrangement that can rarely (if done right) be fit into 3 years. Most Ph.D’s rarely equate the Ph.D side of an MD/Ph.D with a alone Ph.D. It is often based on the research, in reality Master’s level work. So in conclusion your analysis is wrong. Sophie will finish her MD/PhD in a time frame that other MD/PhD’s. Also believe it or not, pathologist’s have to make snap decisions also. You think when a pt. is under the knife and you are checking on margins this can be done at your wished time frame? you are deluded (and so is Sophie).
Another case of mommies thinking they deserve special treatment. I think I should request more break time if I’m taking an exam that happens to coincide with my period – I’ll need some extra time to go brew my chamomile tea at the cafeteria don’t you know.
Eventually these products of IEPs will have to meet the real world.
In the real world, regardless of your job, you are expected to perform at some minimal level. Some jobs, because of their inherent danger to the public, have rigorous requirments to meet before one can begin to practice. This applies to medicine, law, archetecture, engineering and many other fields where certification and/or government review is necessary to provide some elements of work.
There are absolute standards, and one way to determine fitness on an absolute scale (not a relative scale with accomodations) is the standardized exam.
Sophie flunked this exam without the confounder of lactation. And that was with accomodations for her privelege of having her spectrum of abilities coddled.
If she intends to instill some confidence in her ability to practice medicine she had better spend her time hitting the medical books, rather than the law books.
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