Interesting article, to “think”rather than to regurgitate is basic and having to provide an answer to a question seems like a smart plan. I was a keener student and would have been busting my butt to “have” that answer. It would have been my challenge!
If someone feels bad when they cannot answer a question in school, how will they feel when they can't answer a dilemma in practice? Or will they just BS their way along, which I have experienced too many times?
Sadly, doctors are pretty good BS'ers. We rarely say "I don't know". Instead, we label patients with diseases with long latin names.
One of my standard teaching lines to students is "If your job ever seems easy, you're doing it wrong". It's easy for docs to miss things if they forget how complex human beings actually are.
Sad to say, I am very aware of this. Although the past couple of years has tarnished my GP's halo significantly, one thing I really like about him is that he will day "I don't know" AND he will acknowledge what *I* know. When you have something whacky like "fibromyalgia" (which I remain convinced is just a garbage diagnosis), ad I apparently do, a cooperative doc is gold
I became an A student because of fabulous teachers such as this article describes who would make me want to excel, learned to question everything and become the best version of me. My grandfather always said, "to never stop learning or you might as well die." I saddens me greatly to see what is happening to a good portion of our future generations and their entitlement sincerely hoping there will be those teachers that will and can make a difference to turn this around.
Great article, i agree 100%. Important question it raises is how to prevent this slide in education. Academic institutions seem to be moving to a Marxist model, how does one prevent this, and why is it happening?
I think it's part of the mercy-versus-judgment imbalance in modern society, that JBP and other great thinkers have described. Part of "toxic femininity", where there is no personal responsibility, but rather any time someone feels bad about himself, it is society's responsibility to make him feel better. We see this destructive mindset playing out in obesity rates, bulldozer parenting, substance abuse issues, etc etc. I'm not doing a great job of describing it, but in my defence it is a subject worthy of at minimum an essay, and whole books have been written about it. I think "The Coddling of the American Mind" is one of the best.
Not only the coddling but the “blaming of another” ie blame the bartender for not withholding the drinks, personal responsibility seems to be an “old fashioned idea” I find this concept difficult to wrap my head around!
I suspect that the quality of many of our new doctors is contributing to the failures we are now seeing in our health system. Unfortunately, lives are at stake.
As you say, it isn't just a matter of medical education. For example, if our high school students do not have a good grasp of statistics or scientific reasoning they are easily fooled by claims coming from those who want to monopolize "The Science". Similarly, if a student does not study authoritarianism or propaganda they will not have the tools to resist it. As for questioning, I would add that we need to equip our students with the tools to figure out "the right questions". I think it was Einstein that said something “If I had an hour to solve a problem I'd spend 55 minutes thinking about the problem and five minutes thinking about solutions.”
One day I will write about my experiences of teaching. Maybe I should wait until I retire.
Thanks for all your work. Your insights are truly appreciated.
Glad to have found your substack. I was fortunate to have had many teachers who utilized the socratic method, and splendidly. Try pushing students these days, and while a few may appreciate that, for the most part you'll just get shredded here, there and everywhere. But I trust that there are avenues for excellence yet, and with creativity and pluck, they can be found, they can be traveled, and they can be very wonderful.
The saddest issue is that the powers that shouldn't be are currently hellbent on turning "Public Health" into "Skynet", or as Aaron Kheriarty calls it, a "Biomedical Security State". What could possibly go wrong?
Aaron Kheriaty : Rise of the Biomedical Security State Geopolitics & Empire
The Pairodocs got to meet Dr. Kheriaty in person recently. Amazing guy, as good at speaking as writing, and is tentatively one of our 2023 FSIM Conference speakers. A signed copy of his book is now one of our prized possessions.
There is no doubt about it: Kheriarty is indeed a competent speaker and writer. But what's more, like so many of you that had the courage to dissent and risk "status", loss of livelihood and the respect of your "peers" (cough?), he stands in truth and light. The opposite of entities (and I use the term quite appropriately) like Theresa Tam, who crouch in lies and darkness. Not to mention criminality.
I'm sure to the bamboozled and sadly credulous "normies" he sounds like a textbook tin-foil hatter, assuming they ever encounter his censored voice, but that's on them I suppose. He happens to be one of those rare individuals within the "professional" class who has a sufficiently wide perspective, knowledge of history and the intelligence and humility to go along with it that he can clearly articulate the "Big Agenda" and not get lost in the weeds of fragmented distractions.
Clearly, we are being disassembled culturally, de-patterned and re-patterned (see Douglas Farrow's recent piece) as individuals; our institutions and "professions" and traditional values are being mutilated, recalibrated and reconstituted before our very eyes. What we formerly knew as "citizens" of sovereign nation states the world over have been deceived and deluded into forsaking and forgetting their identities and allegiances in service to a most heinous agenda: a globalist/technocratic/transhumanist "plan" that sees us as nothing more than atomized, indexed, itemized biomass "assets". It is thoroughly repugnant.
I feel insane just writing that paragraph! Someone pass me the Gravol!
I'm sure you're familiar with this sentiment, but the last three years have been a clarifying experience for what I can only hope are many of us. A sort of cognitive cataract surgery.
For example, Kheriarty asserts that the controlled demolition of public medicine has been an ongoing thing for at least the better part of two decades. Some of us saw this peripherally, but its meaning had not yet crystallized. I can remember for years in nightly news headlines talk of long wait times, an insufficiency of staff, strident talk of "fixing" the healthcare system etc and all the while it was being rendered dysfunctional in a premeditated way. Because it never did get "fixed". Now, with Covid, and all of its "policy"-induced attendant "collateral damage", it is becoming abundantly clear that this was the plan all along and most of us weren't paying sufficient attention.
And here we are. This isn't a movie or an abstract dystopian Sci-Fi novel. This is here and now and very real. As Max Forte recently wrote "Our so-called public health system is in a state of complete collapse."
I have to reluctantly concur. How could I not. Here in Quebec, I can see it with my own eyes; witness it with my own experience. And it didn't have to be this way. There are perpetrators.
Thank you both for your courageous outspokenness.
Here is a brief 10 minute overview of the lethal perils of "Wokeness" you may find edifying. I wish more people - especially former CBC-listening shitlibs like myself* - would wake up to the clear and present danger this militarized ideology poses to our very humanity.
Back in the 80's the med school interview process to select suitable students for medical education, was to ask them very difficult questions to determine the applicant's comfort level with admitting "I don't know" and their level of curiosity around finding an answer.
The med school interview now consists of questions like "How will you demonstrate your commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion?". So, your doctor may not know that the diabetes drug he just prescribed you is going to interact with your blood thinner and kill you, but at least he'll call you by the proper pronouns when you're in the office.
I teach clinicals in my profession. I hear more and more, when I ask a student to get up to perform a task, “no thank you, I already have that competency.” I can’t get them to restock supplies, clean exam tables, dress the exam tables with clean sheets, or anticipate the next exam and prepare for it. It’s hard for me to be motivated to teach them anything. I don’t get paid to tech them, and it’s not in my job description to do so. Teaching always slows me down in taking care of my patients. I grow weary of their entitlement. They have no clue that they are on a job interview each day they attend clinicals. My profession is small, we all talk to each other about the students that cross our paths; we are not impressed with their lack of both maturity and work ethic.
Another excellent article! Thank you so much! By the way, another problem is medstudents evaluation. I also worked as an Education Coordinator for many years and reviewed many evals done by my colleagues. The vast majority of these evals were 'above average', which doesn't make any sense statistically...But again, nobody wants to hurt anyone's feelings. Medstudents can't be average, they are too smart for that!
It's so true Oleg. One of our teachers (long retired) marked 95% of students in the "exceeds expectations" box. You are absolutely correct to point out that this is a logical/statistical impossibility. If 95% of students are performing at that level, then it is the expected level, and one needs to readjust their calibration on what is below, at, or above average.
I was called by the school because I wouldn’t give perfect scores for a particularly below average student. I at first doubted myself (maybe my expectations were too high), so I placed my student with the other techs in the dept for their insight. It ended up wasting 2 weeks out of the student’s life- my co workers thought I was being generous in my grading. They (student’s pronoun choice) was (were?) asked to leave the program to find another career. (Sorry, I’m having trouble with proper grammar and new pronoun usage). I’ve been teaching clinical Nuclear Medicine for over 20years and the only thing the schools care about is whether the students can pass their written boards to make their numbers look good. Whether or not they can actually do the job is irrelevant to them. My hospital knows it. That’s why old techs are still on the job here. We are reliable and can do the job.
Interesting! Scary to think that the “everyone gets a trophy “ crowd will be in charge of health care!
Interesting article, to “think”rather than to regurgitate is basic and having to provide an answer to a question seems like a smart plan. I was a keener student and would have been busting my butt to “have” that answer. It would have been my challenge!
Socratic method for life!*
I see I have another good reason to continue my avoidance of the medical profession except when absolutely necessary.
If someone feels bad when they cannot answer a question in school, how will they feel when they can't answer a dilemma in practice? Or will they just BS their way along, which I have experienced too many times?
Sadly, doctors are pretty good BS'ers. We rarely say "I don't know". Instead, we label patients with diseases with long latin names.
One of my standard teaching lines to students is "If your job ever seems easy, you're doing it wrong". It's easy for docs to miss things if they forget how complex human beings actually are.
Sad to say, I am very aware of this. Although the past couple of years has tarnished my GP's halo significantly, one thing I really like about him is that he will day "I don't know" AND he will acknowledge what *I* know. When you have something whacky like "fibromyalgia" (which I remain convinced is just a garbage diagnosis), ad I apparently do, a cooperative doc is gold
I became an A student because of fabulous teachers such as this article describes who would make me want to excel, learned to question everything and become the best version of me. My grandfather always said, "to never stop learning or you might as well die." I saddens me greatly to see what is happening to a good portion of our future generations and their entitlement sincerely hoping there will be those teachers that will and can make a difference to turn this around.
Great article, i agree 100%. Important question it raises is how to prevent this slide in education. Academic institutions seem to be moving to a Marxist model, how does one prevent this, and why is it happening?
I think it's part of the mercy-versus-judgment imbalance in modern society, that JBP and other great thinkers have described. Part of "toxic femininity", where there is no personal responsibility, but rather any time someone feels bad about himself, it is society's responsibility to make him feel better. We see this destructive mindset playing out in obesity rates, bulldozer parenting, substance abuse issues, etc etc. I'm not doing a great job of describing it, but in my defence it is a subject worthy of at minimum an essay, and whole books have been written about it. I think "The Coddling of the American Mind" is one of the best.
Not only the coddling but the “blaming of another” ie blame the bartender for not withholding the drinks, personal responsibility seems to be an “old fashioned idea” I find this concept difficult to wrap my head around!
You nailed it, again!
I suspect that the quality of many of our new doctors is contributing to the failures we are now seeing in our health system. Unfortunately, lives are at stake.
As you say, it isn't just a matter of medical education. For example, if our high school students do not have a good grasp of statistics or scientific reasoning they are easily fooled by claims coming from those who want to monopolize "The Science". Similarly, if a student does not study authoritarianism or propaganda they will not have the tools to resist it. As for questioning, I would add that we need to equip our students with the tools to figure out "the right questions". I think it was Einstein that said something “If I had an hour to solve a problem I'd spend 55 minutes thinking about the problem and five minutes thinking about solutions.”
One day I will write about my experiences of teaching. Maybe I should wait until I retire.
Thanks for all your work. Your insights are truly appreciated.
Great comments Matt. Would love to chat with you more about this sometime.
Glad to have found your substack. I was fortunate to have had many teachers who utilized the socratic method, and splendidly. Try pushing students these days, and while a few may appreciate that, for the most part you'll just get shredded here, there and everywhere. But I trust that there are avenues for excellence yet, and with creativity and pluck, they can be found, they can be traveled, and they can be very wonderful.
The saddest issue is that the powers that shouldn't be are currently hellbent on turning "Public Health" into "Skynet", or as Aaron Kheriarty calls it, a "Biomedical Security State". What could possibly go wrong?
Aaron Kheriaty : Rise of the Biomedical Security State Geopolitics & Empire
https://sp.rmbl.ws/s8/2/4/h/1/t/4h1tg.caa.mp4?u=3&b=0
The Pairodocs got to meet Dr. Kheriaty in person recently. Amazing guy, as good at speaking as writing, and is tentatively one of our 2023 FSIM Conference speakers. A signed copy of his book is now one of our prized possessions.
There is no doubt about it: Kheriarty is indeed a competent speaker and writer. But what's more, like so many of you that had the courage to dissent and risk "status", loss of livelihood and the respect of your "peers" (cough?), he stands in truth and light. The opposite of entities (and I use the term quite appropriately) like Theresa Tam, who crouch in lies and darkness. Not to mention criminality.
I'm sure to the bamboozled and sadly credulous "normies" he sounds like a textbook tin-foil hatter, assuming they ever encounter his censored voice, but that's on them I suppose. He happens to be one of those rare individuals within the "professional" class who has a sufficiently wide perspective, knowledge of history and the intelligence and humility to go along with it that he can clearly articulate the "Big Agenda" and not get lost in the weeds of fragmented distractions.
Clearly, we are being disassembled culturally, de-patterned and re-patterned (see Douglas Farrow's recent piece) as individuals; our institutions and "professions" and traditional values are being mutilated, recalibrated and reconstituted before our very eyes. What we formerly knew as "citizens" of sovereign nation states the world over have been deceived and deluded into forsaking and forgetting their identities and allegiances in service to a most heinous agenda: a globalist/technocratic/transhumanist "plan" that sees us as nothing more than atomized, indexed, itemized biomass "assets". It is thoroughly repugnant.
I feel insane just writing that paragraph! Someone pass me the Gravol!
I'm sure you're familiar with this sentiment, but the last three years have been a clarifying experience for what I can only hope are many of us. A sort of cognitive cataract surgery.
For example, Kheriarty asserts that the controlled demolition of public medicine has been an ongoing thing for at least the better part of two decades. Some of us saw this peripherally, but its meaning had not yet crystallized. I can remember for years in nightly news headlines talk of long wait times, an insufficiency of staff, strident talk of "fixing" the healthcare system etc and all the while it was being rendered dysfunctional in a premeditated way. Because it never did get "fixed". Now, with Covid, and all of its "policy"-induced attendant "collateral damage", it is becoming abundantly clear that this was the plan all along and most of us weren't paying sufficient attention.
And here we are. This isn't a movie or an abstract dystopian Sci-Fi novel. This is here and now and very real. As Max Forte recently wrote "Our so-called public health system is in a state of complete collapse."
I have to reluctantly concur. How could I not. Here in Quebec, I can see it with my own eyes; witness it with my own experience. And it didn't have to be this way. There are perpetrators.
Thank you both for your courageous outspokenness.
Here is a brief 10 minute overview of the lethal perils of "Wokeness" you may find edifying. I wish more people - especially former CBC-listening shitlibs like myself* - would wake up to the clear and present danger this militarized ideology poses to our very humanity.
Is There A Secret Agenda Behind The Woke Culture?
https://youtu.be/0c3Dz4dX5AU
_______________________________________________________________________________________________*fear not - fully recovered
I have since mended my ways: I no longer spell Aaron's surname with the superfluous "r".
Great book. Excellent writer.
Back in the 80's the med school interview process to select suitable students for medical education, was to ask them very difficult questions to determine the applicant's comfort level with admitting "I don't know" and their level of curiosity around finding an answer.
The med school interview now consists of questions like "How will you demonstrate your commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion?". So, your doctor may not know that the diabetes drug he just prescribed you is going to interact with your blood thinner and kill you, but at least he'll call you by the proper pronouns when you're in the office.
🤮
Barf.
I teach clinicals in my profession. I hear more and more, when I ask a student to get up to perform a task, “no thank you, I already have that competency.” I can’t get them to restock supplies, clean exam tables, dress the exam tables with clean sheets, or anticipate the next exam and prepare for it. It’s hard for me to be motivated to teach them anything. I don’t get paid to tech them, and it’s not in my job description to do so. Teaching always slows me down in taking care of my patients. I grow weary of their entitlement. They have no clue that they are on a job interview each day they attend clinicals. My profession is small, we all talk to each other about the students that cross our paths; we are not impressed with their lack of both maturity and work ethic.
Sad to hear that. Do you do NucMed? I did a master's in medical physics before veering off that path into medicine.
I do. I’m an old tech, lol. Been in the field since 1986
Another excellent article! Thank you so much! By the way, another problem is medstudents evaluation. I also worked as an Education Coordinator for many years and reviewed many evals done by my colleagues. The vast majority of these evals were 'above average', which doesn't make any sense statistically...But again, nobody wants to hurt anyone's feelings. Medstudents can't be average, they are too smart for that!
It's so true Oleg. One of our teachers (long retired) marked 95% of students in the "exceeds expectations" box. You are absolutely correct to point out that this is a logical/statistical impossibility. If 95% of students are performing at that level, then it is the expected level, and one needs to readjust their calibration on what is below, at, or above average.
I was called by the school because I wouldn’t give perfect scores for a particularly below average student. I at first doubted myself (maybe my expectations were too high), so I placed my student with the other techs in the dept for their insight. It ended up wasting 2 weeks out of the student’s life- my co workers thought I was being generous in my grading. They (student’s pronoun choice) was (were?) asked to leave the program to find another career. (Sorry, I’m having trouble with proper grammar and new pronoun usage). I’ve been teaching clinical Nuclear Medicine for over 20years and the only thing the schools care about is whether the students can pass their written boards to make their numbers look good. Whether or not they can actually do the job is irrelevant to them. My hospital knows it. That’s why old techs are still on the job here. We are reliable and can do the job.