Recipe for bad doctors

Presents several criticisms of medical education, which are excerpted from an article reported in JAMA, volume 269, number 14.

By Morton A. Madoff, published on July 01, 1993

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MODELS OF HEALTH

"In the hospital setting, medical students are exposed to the very ill and the elderly who are often infirm. They don't get to see that there are many, many older people who are alert, lively, and contributing citizens.

"They seldom see a reasonably healthy child. They can't follow the natural history of disease. They don't have an opportunity to see normal people's problems or life's accomplishments. They have a view of medicine that is subspecialty oriented, and the role models to which they are exposed for the most part are subspecialists who are highly skilled in very specific areas but are not broadly oriented in medicine, especially not in the psychosocial aspects of medicine."

ILLUSTRATION (DARRYL ZUDECK)

Morton A. Madoff, M.D. M.P.H., dean of Tufts University School of Medicine, as Reported in JAMA (Vol.269, No. 14).