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Politically
correct garbage
David
Roberts
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The Peninsular Medical School today, 11/1/05, issued the following Press Release. Professor Britten requests that we have our say and it will be our pleasure to do so but first, read on:-
Have Your Say Ends......... --------------- Is this country rip-roaring mad? Are those responsible for medical education certifiable? It certainly looks like it. If this politicially correct program ever gets off the ground it would pay those intending to employ doctors who qualified at the Peninsular Medical School to think again and eliminate them from their list of candidates. I would also suggest that potential medical students cross Professor Britten's establishment from their list, too. It seems as though they will receive a poor clinical medical education. What on earth do the general public know about medical education? That is not intended to be patronising. It is a genuine question. What do the public know about anatomy, physiology, biochemistry, ophthalmology, oncology and the intricacies of radiology? Need I go on? Yet this is precisely what Professor Britten and Dr O'Keefe are, presumably, asking the public to give them guidance upon. Well, isn't it? Surely the good Professor and his side-kick cannot be asking Mrs Bloggs to add even more to an already overfull syllabus? If they are then since the public know little about clinical medicine, inevitably they will be inundated with demands to add sociology in all its politically correct ramifications. It is only possible to squeeze a finite amount into the medical student's schedule. If the Professor's brainwave is added, something must be dropped. And dare I ask the Professor another question? Why on earth should the medical programme be accountable to the local community? Surely the best accountability would be to produce doctors who are well trained in medicine not in politically correct sociological nonsense. It is a thorough knowledge of medicine which heals people and saves lives not what other topics the general public, for whatever reason, thinks should be in the curriculum. Unless, of course, the Professor's questionnaire consists entirely of clinical alternatives. In another departure from reality Prof Britten seriously states that future graduates of the Peninsular Medical School will be doctors "of a community but healthcare users are rarely invited to contribute to their curriculum". That, apparently is his reason for promoting this garbage. I don't want to be too hard on the Professor but plumbers, lawyers, teachers, marine biologists and nuclear physicists also work in a community (or does he believe they are all in outer space?) and the public is rarely invited to contribute to their curricula either And a damn good job, too. I want the teachers, lawyers and nuclear physicists to know exactly what they are doing not what I, in my (and he in his) ignorance think they should be doing. And I daresay, if the public and the Prof give an instant's thought to it, that is what they want from their doctors. They don't want to put their lives in the hands of some half-educated, politically correct foot-doctor. The public want to be absolutely certain that the physician they depend upon knows what is wrong with them or knows how to find out what is wrong with them. That, after all, is what the good Dame Smith was demanding in her recent, infamous Shipman Report. She demands that the GMC ensures that all doctors are examined frequently for clinical competence not for Professor Britten's garbage. It rather looks as though, if the Prof gets his way, the future graduates of the Peninsular Medical School will have some post-graduate clinical catching up to do if they are to stay on the Medical Register. But perhaps I am worrying too much, too soon. We are told that the project will investigate who should be consulted and what their motivation is. So, that's alright, then. If the Prof's team don't like the cut of the jib of a respondent to their questionnaire, they will not be invited to make any further contributions. Now that really is asking the community for help! It seems to be saying that if you are not as PC as the team, you've had it. "We've made our minds up what we want and if you live/don't live in a council house or are/are not working class you may as well shut up". It also implies that if the community thinks it's all madness, for the above reasons, then they will be ignored. The biggest danger of all, though, is that the information collected will be used "to develop a model for healthcare user consultation in the education of medical students" and that it will infest and destroy the excellence of the standard of medical graduates in the future. I am not sure what the length of the Peninsular medical undergraduate course is but if clinically ill-educated or incompletely educated doctors emerge from it's portals then somehow, somewhere that education has to be completed. Far better that that education should be provided before the student becomes a graduate in charge of patients than later when he alone may be responsible for life and death decisions. By consulting a public ignorant about medical education, and presumably taking their advice otherwise why consult them, Professor Britten seems to think the reverse. He is wrong. That is why I believe his idea to be politically correct garbage and a dangerous folly. David Roberts - Editor (12/1/05) |
