In addition to the Thanksgiving holiday, Texas A&M University Distinguished Professor of Chemistry John A. Gladysz is celebrating a milestone this weekend — an invited editorial in the world-leading academic journal Science.
Gladysz's editorial, in which he addresses differences in premedical education and preparation across the world as well as possible solutions to the global doctor shortage, is published today (Nov. 25) in the prestigious publication's current issue.
Prior to joining the Texas A&M Department of Chemistry faculty in 2007 as a tenured professor and inaugural holder of the Dow Chair in Chemical Innovation, Gladysz spent 10 years at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, where he served as chair of organic chemistry and had specific responsibility for the premedical chemistry curriculum. He also held previous faculty positions at the University of Utah (1982-1998) and UCLA (1974-1982) after earning his Ph.D. from Stanford University in 1974.
Gladysz says he was asked by Science Editor-in-Chief Holden Thorp to write about pre-medicine education in Germany and abroad, based on his experience in that realm and the recent avalanche of news stories, opinion pieces and letters analyzing undergraduate introductory science education at U.S. colleges and universities.
"Texas A&M faculty have written occasional op-eds in the New York Times and such, but Science has never called upon anyone in College Station, to my knowledge," Gladysz said. "They publish only weekly, with an average of one editorial per issue — sometimes two, sometimes zero. Three weeks ago, Al Gore authored the editorial, so this is good company."
The lines of communication to medical schools and examination boards regarding optimal learning outcomes for future generations of MDs are broken. These desperately need to be reestablished in a forum that draws national attention and includes international input. Otherwise, substantive modernization and the rational development of widely accepted alternative tracks will never be possible.
Gladysz cites the recent wave of news coverage that includes protests by premed organic chemistry students at NYU as ample evidence there is just cause for concern regarding the depth and breadth of chemical education required across disparate fields. He notes most of the critiques have focused on the four semesters of chemistry typically taken during students' first two years of study — in particular, the third and fourth semesters, usually organic chemistry, that are challenging due to their expected mastery of many new concepts with few parallels in disciplines outside of chemistry.
In his editorial (the 66th thus far in his extensive curriculum vitae), Gladysz posits that one track of chemistry education may not fit all and that medicine is best served by doctors with a variety of majors and preparation which takes both global perspectives and practices into account.
"I first stepped into a classroom to teach the initial semester of organic chemistry in 1974," Gladysz recalled, noting that first class included 300 students. "In the interval since, spent at four major research universities, my colleagues have always been concerned about addressing the needs of all students taking this course and how to make it more attractive and functional for each constituency. However, the lines of communication to medical schools and examination boards regarding optimal learning outcomes for future generations of MDs are broken. These desperately need to be reestablished in a forum that draws national attention and includes international input. Otherwise, substantive modernization and the rational development of widely accepted alternative tracks will never be possible."
Gladysz's research expertise lies in organometallic chemistry, which centers around compounds with metal-carbon bonds and spans a wide range of problems across several branches of chemistry with impact in multiple sectors and industries. During his nearly 50-year career, Gladysz has authored more than 500 publications and patents combined, and his many scholarly awards and honors include the 2013 Royal Society of Chemistry Award for Organometallic Chemistry as well as the 1994 American Chemical Society (ACS) Award in Organometallic Chemistry. From 2010 to 2014, he served as only the second all-time editor-in-chief of the journal Organometallics.
A fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (2004), Gladysz is a longtime member of the ACS, The Chemical Society and the Gesellschaft Deutscher Chemiker (GDCh). In 2009, he was inducted into Phi Beta Delta, the first honor society dedicated to recognizing scholarly achievement in international education. A past Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Fellow (1980-1984) and a Camille and Henry Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Grant recipient (1980-1985), Gladysz also has received an Alexander von Humboldt Foundation Research Award for Senior Scientists (1995) and the ACS’s Arthur C. Cope Scholar Award (1988). He served from 1984 to 2010 as an associate editor of Chemical Reviews, the journal with the highest impact factor in chemistry.