Maggie's Farm

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Saturday, April 2. 2011

Diversity in medical schools?

Medical schools, these days, are up to around 50% diligent, perfect-student, rule-abiding boring females. Tons of Asians, too. Doctors are no longer mainly the smart Jewish guys and the patrician WASPy guys of the past.


The Association of American Medical Schools wants to change the tests for more diversity. As such things tend to be, I'd guess they want more black and Mexican kids and more gays, and fewer grade-grubbing Asians and white girls.


If I recall, it was a while ago that they changed their tests: they eliminated the "General Information" part of the MCAT, which dealt with history, literature, psychology, culture, etc. That change must have altered the general make-up of medical school classes too: more science nerds and fewer of the potentially-wise priestly class.


But maybe that's what people want from docs these days: expert technicians. It's not for me. I want expertise, but with a heart and soul and some wisdom and flexibility.


It will be airline pilots, next in line, for all of this.

Posted by The Barrister in Education, Our Essays at 15:47 | Comments (10) | Trackbacks (0)

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I keep telling you and telling you, my friends, selecting your doctors or your lawyers [or your friends] because of moonbat ideas of "diversity" is a Bad Choice. When I passed 71, I decided to give up political correctness and 'diversity' because they were both damfool ideas meant to postpone having to grow up and learn to use good judgment in your selection of friends to enjoy and who to employ. Because America is, or was until recently, pretty much living off the fat of the land, compared to the rest of the world, we've gotten spoiled rotten. Most of us [except for our military] haven't had to make serious moral choices or judgments, or even to grow up and take personal responsibility, until recently. Our children have the longest extended childhoods of those in any civilized country. Do you seriously think that the youth of today would be willing to line up, day after day, seeking temporary employment as men and women did in the 1930s? Heck no. They'd be rioting and demonstrating, like the students in Madison, Wisconsin, just for the fun of it. They'd be looting and fighting, as they did during the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

There's no excitement in being a good, conscientious citizen. It's hard work being a grown-up. You might have to give up the computer games and go to work on a production line. or on a construction job, And your employers would expect you to turn up every work day, on time and sober.

What's the fun in that?

Marianne
#1 Marianne Matthews on 2011-04-02 17:24 (Reply)
What I've read suggests that it's self-selection: as medicine has become more bureaucratic, and more doctors have become either employees of HMOs or part of group practices, it has become more feasible for women to consider becoming doctors and have a family as well. If they hope to partially raise their own children, that is.

Some might argue that males who might have worked 14 hours a day as surgeons, specialists or in solo practices in the past wouldn't put up with being told what to do by an HMO now.

Women are certainly good at the subjects like history, literature, psychology and other general education requirements that foster "wisdom" and being the kind of human being who treats the whole person rather than just body parts. In fact, there are those who used to argue that women weren't good enough at math and science to become doctors and scientists...I can't speak for Asian-Americans, being a boring old WASP myself...

As far as diversity goes? My friends in the Yale Med School (when I was in another Yale grad school for much dumber students, since med students are obviously the smartest of all grad students) used to snarl about diversity admits and scholarships even 30 years ago. Except that there was this one joyful time when the good and deserving students would be vindicated: the Medical Boards. Those dreaded exams at the end that could not be fudged or fixed or scored differentially on the basis of background or "oppression" or whatever. If you passed, you got to be an M.D. If you failed, not. It screened out some of those who might have become bad doctors.
#2 retriever on 2011-04-02 19:24 (Reply)
Mark Perry at Carpe Diem has posted about the lower MCAT scores and GPAs of certain minorities (Asians as a group lead the pack), so when I saw the news about the new MCAT elsewhere the first thing I thougt was that they wanted to massage the test to mask this fact. Not sure what this will mean ultimately.

Agreed, Marianne, I don't want to pick a MD based on anything but competence. I teach at a small liberal arts college and when I saw the proposed changes, I wanted to vomit. Coupled with the further government takeover of health care, this doesn't bode well for any of us.
#3 anonymous on 2011-04-02 20:19 (Reply)
It will be airline pilots, next in line, for all of this.

Where does Maggie's Farm fit in the schedule?
#4 chuck on 2011-04-02 20:22 (Reply)
I don't go to the docs often but the docs I go to - a general practitioner, a pediatrician for the kid, an orthopedic surgeon for my occasional broken bones, and a neurosurgeon for an occasional back problem - kick ass. It took about ten years of bitter experience with mediocre docs of all colors and both sexes to get the dream team sorted out. They are two white wasp or upper crusty catholic guys (patrician types), a brilliant jewish guy, and a whip smart black guy. The only criteria that matters is picking a doc who can get it done well, and as a lawyer, I'm all too aware that licensing criteria signal minimum acceptable competency to perform a particular job, not a high level of proficiency. Caveat emptor.
#5 Jim on 2011-04-02 21:18 (Reply)
The diversity at admittance to med-school doesn't concern me as much as the possibility of decreeing a diverse outcome. IOW graduating incompetent doctors due to their race/gender religion to achieve a desired percentage.

It is bad enough as it is.

One can't tell the doctors with 'A" grades in college from the doctors with "C' grades. The diplomas all look the same.
#6 feeblemind on 2011-04-02 21:35 (Reply)
"...a heart and soul and some wisdom and flexibility..."

Those are four different things. The latter two are important in a doctor, the first two, not so much, thanks.
#7 Assistant Village Idiot (Link) on 2011-04-02 22:05 (Reply)
#6 feeblemind
" One can't tell the doctors with 'A" grades in college from the doctors with "C' grades. The diplomas all look the same."
===============

As someone once remarked: "Remember- 50% of all doctors were in the bottom half of their class..."
#8 A_Nonny_Mouse on 2011-04-02 22:44 (Reply)
All STEM jobs are now the front and center targets for the diversity goons.
#9 Shemyavet on 2011-04-03 15:03 (Reply)
I've learned my lesson from surgeons: I don't care who's the nice guy, as long as they know what they're doing.
#10 beenel on 2011-04-03 22:22 (Reply)

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