EDITORIALS
Should we be using statistics to define disease?
Correspondence to:
David M Mannino, Department of Preventive Medicine and Environmental Health, University of Kentucky College of Public Health, 121 Washington Avenue, Lexington, KY 40536, USA; dmannino@uky.edu
| The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below. |
"Don’t worry about the physiology test—if everybody fails, everybody passes", Anonymous, Jefferson Medical College, Fall 1977.
The first few months of medical school caused anxiety in most students, who typically went from environments where they were well above the "norm" in their classes to one in which they were just average. At the same time, the volume and difficulty of the material one was expected to master increased dramatically, compared with undergraduate studies. The one hope students could hold onto was that tests were graded "on the curve" and as long as you did better than the bottom 5% of the class (the lower limit of normal (LLN)) you would pass. This is the origin of the phrase "if everyone fails, everyone passes". At the time, unbeknownst to the students, there was a push in our medical school to move towards a more standardised minimal passing grade of, somewhat ironic
CiteULike 
Complore 
Connotea 
Del.icio.us 
Digg 
Reddit 
Technorati What's this?
Relevant Articles
- Underestimation of airflow obstruction among young adults using FEV1/FVC <70% as a fixed cut-off: a longitudinal evaluation of clinical and functional outcomes
- I Cerveri, A G Corsico, S Accordini, R Niniano, E Ansaldo, J M Antó, N Künzli, C Janson, J Sunyer, D Jarvis, C Svanes, T Gislason, J Heinrich, J P Schouten, M Wjst, P Burney, and R de Marco
Thorax 2008 63: 1040-1045.[Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
- Using the lower limit of normal for the FEV1/FVC ratio reduces the misclassification of airway obstruction
- M P Swanney, G Ruppel, P L Enright, O F Pedersen, R O Crapo, M R Miller, R L Jensen, E Falaschetti, J P Schouten, J L Hankinson, J Stocks, and P H Quanjer
Thorax 2008 63: 1046-1051.[Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
- Full Text
- Full Text (PDF)
- Alert me when this article is cited
- Alert me if a correction is posted
- Citation Map
Services
- Email this link to a friend
- Similar articles in this journal
- Similar articles in PubMed
- Add article to my folders
- Download to citation manager
- Request Permissions
Citing Articles
Google Scholar
PubMed
Topic Collections
Bookmark with
Register for free content
The full back archive is now available for all BMJ Journals. Institutional subscribers may access the entire archive as part of their subscription. Personal subscribers will also have access to all content when logged in. Non-subscribers who register have free access to all articles published before 2006 right back to volume 1 issue 1. Register here to access the free archive of all BMJ Journals.
Don't forget to sign up for content alerts so you keep up to date with all the articles as they are published.
