Who Shall Study Medicine in the 1980s?
One Solution to the Admissions Predicament
- Alan Blum, MD
Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text.
Excerpt
MORE than two thirds of the students who enter college aspiring to a career in medicine decide otherwise by senior year.1 But can we be certain that those who survive the premedical science initiation rites make more capable and understanding physicians than those who do not? Could not the extreme competitiveness that makes acceptance to medical school an end to itself be excluding a more selfless and compassionate type of doctor?
Such questions are worthy of discussion, for the premedical curriculum and medical admissions committee selection procedures appear to be under harsher attack than at any time since Flexner. Indeed, Chapman,2 describing the premedical sciences as "redundant and stupefying" and "more punitive than enlightening," points out that they have gone unchanged for half a century. And Lewis Thomas goes so far as to suggest that the admissions requirements of medical schools have harmed all of liberal arts education.
Footnotes
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Reprint requests to Dr Blum at 924 W Webster Ave, Chicago, IL 60614.
