Professor: Becker Course format: Lecture w/section Number of respondents: 29 Total Enrollment: 52 Class Composition: Froshs: 0 Sophs: 14 Jrs: 17 Srs: 20 Concs: 8 Non-Concs: 16 Don't Know: 5

Instructor Average: 1.79 Course Average: 1.71

If NBC’s “ER” doesn’t give you enough insight into Dr Carter and the gang’s world, then you should take “Emergency Medical Systems: An Anatomy or Critical Performance.” This course tries to provide you with a good introduction to emergency medicine. It seeks to enable the student to see the medical world from a social perspective, understand the responsibilities of an ER doctor, and learn about the problems inherent to emergency medicine. There are no prerequisites, but priority is given to BC concentrators and some PLME students.

Professor Becker was extremely engaging, enthusiastic, humorous, and encouraging. He brought a lot of real world experience and knowledge about ER medicine to his dynamic lectures. Students liked his accessibility, but found him to be only moderately willing to considering different students needs and interests. His disorganization was also not appreciated.

The course was structured around a midterm, a final presentation, and section write-ups. Students really like the assigned novels, but weren’t to enthusiastic about the case studies. Most found themselves spending two to five hours a week on work outside of the class. This was approximately the amount of time they initially expected to spend.

Survey respondents primarily seemed to say, “Take it!” They also agreed that the class usually was fun and pretty laid-back. Dr. Becker was thought to be inspiring and more than one student thought he was one of the best lecturers they had ever encountered. The subject matter was considered fascinating and interesting if Emergency Medicine gets you hot, though some boring readings did subtract from the overall enjoyment of the course.

View BC/0152 in the Brown Online Course Announcement.