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- Newsgroups: sci.research,sci.med
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- From: bhjelle@carina.unm.edu ()
- Subject: Re: Medics as scientists ?
- Message-ID: <56dnpxb@lynx.unm.edu>
- Date: Fri, 28 Aug 92 23:06:31 GMT
- Organization: University of New Mexico, Albuquerque
- References: <1992Aug28.202346.10727@maths.tcd.ie> <28qpbz8c@csv.warwick.ac.uk>
- Lines: 44
-
- In article <28qpbz8c@csv.warwick.ac.uk> csuah@warwick.ac.uk (~WISP at CU~) writes:
- >In article <1992Aug28.202346.10727@maths.tcd.ie> arora@maths.tcd.ie (Ashish Arora) writes:
- >>
- >> Do you find that good doctors (medical doctors) make good researchers,
- >>or is it the case that good doctors and good researchers are mutually
- >>exclusive groups?
- >> Only comments please -- no flaming.
- >
- >Interesting question. I'm a doctor (ex, actually, decided life was more
- >important than work...),
-
- What do you do now?
-
- and often heard it said that clinical practice was
- >the death of many a good mind. The point is that medical training teaches a
- >way of thinking that is rigid and 'flowcharted', with little or no room for
- >innovation or originality. There certainly are doctors who have also been good
- >researchers (e.g. from my alma mater, Prof. Sir Stanley Peart FRS,
- >practising physician and dicoverer of this, that and the other...), but I
- >think they're probably in a tiny minority.
- >
- >I'm hoping I got out soon enough... ;-)
- >
- This is a tired old canard. I suppose the best argument against
- this is the innumerable stellar scientists who happen to be MDs,
- including people like Dan Nathans, Harold Varmus, Hamilton Smith,
- Mike Bishop, etc, etc (if you don't know who these people
- are, check recent editions of Who's Who, or the roster of
- Nobel Prize winners).
-
- What always amazes me is the notion that the rote memorization
- required for medical school somehow robs one of the ability to
- have original thought. While such training may not provide
- the purer intellectual challenges of graduate training, there
- is a tradeoff in that one gains a more global perspective of
- mammalian biology than might be obtained from many graduate
- programs.
-
- Furthermore, MDs interested in science can and do go on to
- get extensive training in research at the postdoctoral
- level.
-
- Brian
-
-