There seems to be quite an uproar around a certain Viewpoint written by Paul Szerlip on March 29, "Applaud the pre-meds ... applaud the problems." Many people seem to have the impression that Szerlip was simply lashing out at pre-meds in general, and Hayley Marcus and Brian Schurko even wrote Viewpoints of their own in angry rebuttal of Szerlip's opinion.
Let me preface this by saying that I don't know Paul. I've never met him, and I had never heard his name until I read these pieces. There are some elements of his article, however, that many of you (pre-meds and non-pre-meds alike) are missing.
First of all, I feel his main point needs to be reiterated and clarified: Szerlip's main concern is with a specific subset of pre-med students. If you're a pre-med studying medicine to help your patients, if you care about their well-being above all else, and if you are willing to put your career on the line to improve your patients' lives, then I applaud you and you can stop reading now. Neither Szerlip nor I have nothing negative to say about you.
Szerlip wrote about a specific type of pre-meds (he calls them "c-pres") that strive for academic excellence to the exclusion of all else. This is an admirable goal, but he feels they take it too far. Szerlip's c-pres live a hermit-like existence, spending all of their waking hours studying and doing homework, all for that elusive 4.0 GPA and admission to a prestigious medical school. On the rare occasion that they might have free time, these c-pres engage in all kinds of extracurriculars, not because they are passionate about them or find them interesting, but because they want to put it on their r?©sum?©s. His claim is about these people and no one else.
Personally, while I feel that this group of students likely does exist (and no, this opinion piece does not have research to that end, that's the job of real journalists), I think Szerlip's attacks go a bit too far. I'm not prepared to say that c-pres are the problem with health care in the United States. HMOs and health insurance agencies that won't pay to cover necessary medical care are, in my opinion, a much bigger problem. However, Szerlip raises a very good point about his c-pres that is lost upon the ears of the offended.
If you spent all of your high school and college careers obsessed with academia, striving for academic excellence, you might be the most learned doctor out there. You might study hard through medical school and have the technical and intellectual expertise to be the best surgeon in the country. You might do research to cure diseases and benefit mankind. Being a great surgeon or a great researcher, however, is only one part of being a doctor. If you don't have the personal connection with your patients, if you don't have the compassion to care about their well-being more than you care about your research or your statistics, then you may be a great surgeon, but you're a bad doctor.
I'll clarify that for those of you who may take that the wrong way. "Bad" in this context does not mean incompetent, unskilled or ignorant. As I said, you could be the most skilled surgeon in the world. However, if you're not going to perform an operation on me solely because you're worried about how it will look if you fail, then you're a bad doctor. Even if that operation has a 90 percent chance of killing me, if it could save my life, I consider myself competent enough to make the decision for myself of how far I want my medical professionals to go to save me. If I'm fully aware of the costs and risks, and still want to go through with the surgery, a good doctor will not stop me. It may be your decision to do the surgery, but if you're a good doctor, you will respect my wishes and my desire to live, and you'll do it.
One of my biggest concerns, however, is not the argument that Szerlip makes, but the reactions to it that I've seen. People like Marcus and Schurko are outraged, and Szerlip is probably not even talking about either of you! Worst of all, I've seen nothing but ad hominem attacks on Szerlip in the comments on his article on the Daily's Web site. Hate the man all you want, folks, but it doesn't make his argument less valid.
I'll only say this about the response articles written about Szerlip's Viewpoint: Make sure you're arguing against what he's actually saying. Szerlip actually says he is not jealous of the c-pres' grades or college acceptances, so Marcus might do well not to claim that he is. Also, the claim that pre-meds stay away from drugs and alcohol "because [pre-meds] are smart enough to know better," is not as true as you would have us believe. I'm not and never will be a pre-med, and I have enough respect for my body not to drink or do drugs. Don't think your pre-med status makes you any better than anyone else.
And before you start in on me, let me tell you that I know what pre-meds deal with, and I know you can have fun in college and still pull that top-of-the-class grade. My girlfriend is pre-vet (which is harder than pre-med, by the way), and she still has time to go to our floor's Game Night on Thursdays and play the occasional game of Mario Party. I know engineers who could have a physics problem set, a chemistry exam and coursework due for a 300-level comp sci course and still find a way to go out on the weekends. It's not impossible to have a little fun at college and still go to Yale Medical School.
Let me go over my 1000-word limit by saying this: In the medical profession, care for your patients should come first, above all else. I'd rather have an OK doctor who cares about me than a great doctor who would rather let me die than let me into his drug trial. If what you want is prestige, money and respect, become a lawyer and don't take the place of dedicated medical students who care about their patients but would rather have a life than a 4.0.
