No, your trepidation is due to sanity. I guess I shouldn't be surprised, but it's horrifying to hear that a medical school would "accomodate" someone's "learning disability." Do these accomodations entail giving the person more time to take tests or some other way of making medical school easier?

Why are you horrified? Everyone has their unique blend of talents and lack thereof.

Allowing more time to take a test doesn't make the test -- or med school -- any easier. And a learning disability doesn't mean that the person isn't as smart as someone who doesn't have a disability, only that they learn in a different way. In fact, a much higher percentage of kids diagnosed with ADHD are mentally gifted than kids without such disabilities.

I assume the blind doctor doesn't operate on anyone. But the fact that his other senses are heightened probably makes him an excellent GP or Internist, being able to feel and hear and smell things that other doctors couldn't.

ADHD also has its benefits. People with ADHD usually have the ability to "hyperfocus" -- and that's exactly what you want when someone is reconnecting tiny blood vessels in your brain. In addition, people with ADHD are often highly creative and they want to fix things quickly. So they are the ones who are more likely to invent new medical equipment and devices.

So instead of avoiding a doctor who has ADHD, you may instead try to seek one out -- you'll probably get a better doctor.

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---Shosh

Correct. Which is why some people will never be physicians.

How can you type something so ridiculous. Having more time to complete an exam doesn't make the exam easier? That is a ridiculous statement.

Being unable to learn with the same constraints as other people does mean you aren't as smart. And what do you mean by "learn in a different way?" Can you formally define that so as to be suitable for medical diagnosis. Can you propose any sensible criteria for diagnosing a learning disability? Will there be a pathonomic indicator?

1) I don't believe that and would like to see a source. If your statement were true, we would be caught in some bizarro world where we sought out ADHD kids for special training programs that those of us without disabilities probably aren't smart enough to handle.
2) I would not be surprised to see that the diagnoses are made more often in higher SES children, since their parents are more likely to consult "experts."

Thanks for a good laugh. Apparently, you live your entire life by old wives' tales. Do you put butter on burns? But seriously, it is clear you aren't very close with a blind person.

I see - so if you have attention deficit, you actually focus better than the rest of us. You cannot possibly believe some of the things you are typing.

So why isn't there any evidence that these ADHD cases are going out and becoming super-physicians? I tell you what, you pick the physicians that were given help to pass medical school, I'll avoid them, and we'll let Darwinism take its course.

Half of all doctors graduate in the bottom half of their class.

I could care less if my doctor is good at taking standardized tests. As long as he's good at opening me up, stitching me back together, and not finding himself with a bag of spare parts afterward.

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[I][FONT=Helvetica][SIZE=-1][COLOR=#000000]"Some people, well, if they don't like Scientology, well, then, f**k you. Really. F**k you. Period."

-Tom Cruise
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But your physician is already a high performer on standardized tests, even if she or he is in the bottom half of the class. That's because a lot of would-be physicians never graduate, and many many more never even get to medical school. Stop attenuating the sample that comprises physicians and you'll see how important standardized tests are.

Eh. I was always real good at standardized tests, but my hands shake like I've got the DTs anytime I try to do as much as spackle a wall.

__________________
[I][FONT=Helvetica][SIZE=-1][COLOR=#000000]"Some people, well, if they don't like Scientology, well, then, f**k you. Really. F**k you. Period."

-Tom Cruise
[/COLOR][/SIZE][/FONT][/I]

Exactly. A while ago I filled out an application for a reality show, and one of the questions was "name your three best skills." Top of my list was taking standardized tests. I don't know why I'm good at it, but I am -- read, answer, repeat. And taking those tests is a skill that can be taught -- why do you think Kaplan and all the other test prep companies do so well? But the fact is, test taking is not a real life skill for any profession, medical or otherwise.

__________________
---Shosh

I heard of a deaf guy who became a composer. I'm sure he sucked.

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Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that. -George Carlin

Let me make it easier for you:

If you don't know that the capital of Canada is Ottowa, you can't get it right whether you have 30 seconds to answer the question or 30 minutes. OTOH, if you know that the answer is OTTOWA, but your brain initially reads one of the possible answers as OTTOMV, it may take you a few more seconds to work it out, but you still know the answer.


Right; it may mean you're smarter. Like, say, Albert Einstein.


I can't find the article offhand, but my recollection is that approximately 2% of the general population is gifted (IQ above 131) while approximately 6% of the ADHD population is gifted. I will admit, however, that these numbers might be skewed because there is a high degree of similarity between giftedness and ADHD, and therefore gifted children are at risk for being misdiagnosed as having ADHD.

Close, no? But I did volunteer at the Foundation for the Junior Blind for 18 years when I lived in LA, so I'm not completely naive on the subject.

You evidently don't know anyone with ADHD. Often what appears to be inattentiveness is really extreme attentiveness to a single thing, to the exclusion of everything else.
http://psychology.wikia.com/wiki/Hyperfocus

__________________
---Shosh

oh boy

I notice you didn't bother to answer my question, but we all know the answer. Having more time on a test makes it easier. Your contrived example isn't even that compelling. I don't need 30 seconds to know that the capital of Canada is Ottawa and someone who does is unsure of themselves.

Two points are important: 1) No one is going to give a physician more time in an emergency situation in the real world. 2) No one "sees" OTTOMV. Letter recognition is very basic and deeply engrained function that is hard to destroy. Even severely brain damaged patients recognize letters properly. That is your heuristic presentation of a learning disability, but it isn't true.

Wow. I assume this statement is based on yet another myth/wives' tale that you believe in. Einstein excelled at mathematics in school always, right from the beginning. He may have sucked at other subjects. Doesn't matter, it was theoretical physics, which is highly mathematical, where he made his fame.

You seem to revel in arguing the absurd. Now you argue that someone who can't learn as well as others in the traditional setting is actually smarter. Add that to ADHD people comprise *much* more of the gifted group and having more time on a test doesn't make the test easier. Are you learning disabled or something?

And you're not going to.

Then you must have noticed that the blind people didn't have super hearing and smelling.

I know oodles of children who were given the diagnosis. Your link is a wiki page, not an authoritative source (if you believe in such things when it comes to psychiatry in the first place). You will note, however, that "hyperfocus" is not recognized in the DSM, which means that it has nothing to do with receiving a psychiatric diagnosis of ADHD. Yet, it is that method of diagnosis that gets you special treatment on tests and whatnot.