Obstacles in Educating Phyicians

["H.B. Knowles" <hbknowles@hbknowles.com>]

A.Tschaeske, reproduced the remarks of J. Gibbs, who made some excellent 
points about the amount of information a premed is supposed to absorb, and 
the resultant lack of time. I am sure it is worse now than it was in about 
1975, when I made an attempt to create an innovation at Washington State 
(NOT U of Washington, note) and encountered another obstacle.

I had just sprebt a summer at Los Alamos, working with, among other summer 
staff there, Ray Wilenzick of Tulane, who had been teaching a course in 
"modern physics for premeds" not only radiation, but lots of stuff related 
to medicine that was just coming in-NMR imaging (you could still call it 
"nuclear" then). He kindly gave me a syllabus, and when I returned to WSU 
that fall, I went to see the old crock who ran the pre-med program. He 
nearly threw me out of the office. I was advised-somewhat profanely- of the 
following.
	a. Since the university money was doled out on the basis of "student clock 
hours" he would do everything possible to keep all premeds in the 
department of biology (his own) and not allow them to take any more courses 
outside it than the minimum needed to qualify for med school. He bitterly 
resented the 8 hours of physics they had to take already.
	b. In any case, it wasn't necessary to know any modern physics to get into 
medical school, because the MCAT exams were written by the present crop of 
doctors  and they wouldn't put in any questions on radiation and such, 
because they knew nothing about it.

At least there was some tangible reason for his being negative, so that 
makes it a little more reasonable. I suspect that this reasoning prevailed, 
and will prevail, until the AMA wakes up to the damage they are doing, and 
a few malpractice suits are successful.
H.B. Knowles, PhD, Physics Consulting
4030 Hillcrest Rd, El Sobrante, CA 94803
Phone (510)758-5449
Fax (510) 758-5508
<hbknowles@hbknowles.com>
<www.hbknowles.com>

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