EDITORIAL pubs.acs.org/jchemeduc
Celebrating the Chemical Education Connections to Health and Medicine Norbert J. Pienta* Department of Chemistry, University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa 52242-1294, United States ABSTRACT: Chemists play an important role in educating medical professionals. Chemical education connections to health and medicine are discussed as part of the celebration of the 2011 National Chemistry Week. KEYWORDS: General Public, Medicinal Chemistry said “Next” before looking up. Upon seeing me, the technician immediately said, “You don’t have to tell me who you are. You are the reason I almost didn’t get into pharmacy school.” My last several teaching assignments have included the second course of an organic chemistry sequence, thereby establishing a direct relationship to the statements from this former student. At my institution, prepharmacy students often get accepted after a single semester of organic chemistry, pending successful completion of the second semester. In the case being described, apparently the pharmacy technician confused the student’s role in successfully completing the class, and my apparent role as the instructor in reporting the outcomes: The pharmacy technician equated me personally to the organic chemistry course and its content. It seems that the pharmacy school must teach ethics later in the curriculum than this pharmacy technician had completed at the time. A true optimist would reflect about these three instances, and maintain a positive outlook. That is the case here. Although one might see the confusion between the unit prefixes “micro” and “milli” as an extreme shortcoming in healthcare workers and an illustration of trivial knowledge, units represent just one of a host of ideas and skills that chemistry prerequisite courses might provide as preparation for medical professionals. Indeed, medicine is a virtual morass of concentration units. Unlike the tidiness and standard usage of molarity in chemistry, bodily fluids can contain components that are regularly reported in millimoles, milligrams, or milliequivalents per deciliter, or just as easily the nano version of the same set. The basic skills that include an understanding of units and a practical appreciation of their magnitudes, together with more profound concepts, such as how concentration gradients of sodium and potassium ions serve to drive the actions of muscles, are the justification for the prerequisite chemistry courses we teach. Although these “service” courses represent job security to chemistry educators, we must also be careful about quality and value. For example, at my home institution, the nursing program was convinced to resume the requirement of a second semester of chemistry (i.e., an organic and biochemistry course) in return for the chemistry department’s promise to include context and health-related content and examples. This was expedited by using a new book
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he 2011 ACS theme for National Chemistry Week is “Chemistry—Our Health, Our Future”.1 Several connections between health and education are obvious, although this piece will focus on the training of health professionals, and begins with some personal observations. Almost 25 years ago, I experienced a medical event that was surprising and quite serious. It was a surprise because men in their mid-30s do not expect to have this experience. This was certainly a transformative event in the medical sense, but also personally, ultimately leading to a career shift from research in photochemistry to scholarship and research in chemical education. Appreciation for the medical staff that kept my life (and career) going dutifully appears in the acknowledgment of a paper published shortly thereafter.2 Having a chronic problem often leads one back to medical settings—hospitals, clinics, and medical offices. Let me offer three vignettes that embody connections of chemistry and health care in a medical setting. On one of those visits, while horizontal on a gurney at the time, I overheard a nearby conversation (among staff, not patients) that included the line, “Remind me: is ‘micro’ or ‘milli’ bigger?” It might be ironic that one of my research group’s projects concerned introductory chemistry students’ difficulty with unit conversions between milliliters and liters (and vice versa); remember the units while the story continues. Vignette two: During a subsequent (and more uplifting) visit, two out of four residents and fellows remarked during rounds, after discovering that I was a chemistry professor, that they had been chemistry majors. One of those fellows returned later that day to tell me about his research project and his wonderful experience. (“Joey” had learned a great deal about problem solving, chemistry, and growing up at a highly rated primarily undergraduate institution in Arkansas. And he was proud of what he had accomplished all along the way.) The third vignette begins with my physicians, whose collective prescriptions ensure that I do my best to support the pharmaceutical industry. Drug discovery and development are part of a long history with strong interactions between chemistry and medicine. Chemists’ impacts are both scientific and economic, and worth an entire discussion at a later time. However, this story ends in the line at the pharmacy where I was picking up some medicine. You know the routine—you give them your name, and the pharmacy technician delivers the goods after the requisite signatures. This technician, a “Pharm. D.” student in this case, Copyright r 2011 American Chemical Society and Division of Chemical Education, Inc.
Published: August 18, 2011 1343
dx.doi.org/10.1021/ed200522z | J. Chem. Educ. 2011, 88, 1343–1344
Journal of Chemical Education
EDITORIAL
with medical and health-related context integrated into the content together with case studies and a problem-based approach. Independently as instructors and collectively as a community, we are responsible for convincing professional programs of the value of our chemistry courses. This means that we should be careful about what we include in those courses and which pedagogies are selected to promote learning and student success. Encountering one’s own students, or those of colleagues, who have achieved a successful trajectory is a satisfying aspect of an academic career. We are especially happy when our students pursue a graduate career and aspire to be like us. Ensuring that chemistry majors aspire to and succeed in medical professions is equally important. Problem-solving skills are critical for medical professionals, and the typical curriculum for chemistry majors provides the opportunity to give students appropriate experience and training; chemistry has the rigor and the reputation. There is no need for “pre-med” to have a negative connotation. Under the circumstances, Joey, the fellow making rounds with the attending physician, turned out to be important to me personally. In a more global sense, all of us need a talented pool of “Joey” equivalents. Even the pharmacy technician fits into this category. The frustration was misdirected and the public comment inappropriate, but not because it was directed toward me. (In fact, my personal view is that organic chemists should reconsider the content and organization of organic chemistry courses, particularly for the preprofessional audience.) Celebrate National Chemistry Week, cherish your health and that of those around you, and enthusiastically participate in the education of students pursuing medical professions. I am literally counting on you.
’ AUTHOR INFORMATION Corresponding Author
*E-mail:
[email protected].
’ REFERENCES (1) For example, see this ACS Web page for National Chemistry Week 2011. http://portal.acs.org/portal/acs/corg/content?_nfpb= true&_pageLabel=PP_TRANSITIONMAIN&node_id=1033&use_ sec=false&sec_url_var=region1&__uuid=5505d8d6-790b-4b24-aac 2-36738e72b0b3 (accessed Aug 2011). (2) Pienta, N. J.; Kessler, R. J.; Peters, K. S.; O’Driscoll, E. D.; Arnett, E. M.; Molter, K. E. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 1991, 113 (10), 3773 3781; DOI: 10.1021/ja00010a021.
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dx.doi.org/10.1021/ed200522z |J. Chem. Educ. 2011, 88, 1343–1344
