Thursday, April 2, 2009

Badmouthing the Med School

Over at Science-Based Medicine (great site), there is a post by a medical student about his/her concern with a mandatory assignment to a clinic that promotes alternative medicine (things like acupuncture to "control post-partum bleeding" and cupping). This is an unfortunate situation that is creeping into many medical schools (including mine). Dr. Gorski has a great response to the student (document everything, find other students/faculty members who feel the same, then make a formal complaint to the dean). One thing, though, that caught my eye was the following:
Unfortunately, Student X informs me that the dean censors anything said by medical students on blogs or online forums that might bring the medical school into disrepute. Were I to name his medical school and it ever became known who had complained to me, the consequences are likely to be unpleasant.

Is this legal? From the terrible experiences several med students I know have had, my plan, after returning to med school, is to document my experiences (good and bad) here, on this blog. If there's anything that the medical school does that may give it a bad reputation, they should fix it, rather than threaten their students and attempt to hide it from the public. I don't know what the official stance of my medical school is (and I don't plan on asking either), but I don't intend on holding much back.

5 comments:

  1. I'm right with you, dude. I'm going to be blogging up a storm myself when you and I are both back at...ummm...Med School X. The reality is that nobody who has any particular stock on our future will probably be reading, any way, so what does it matter what we write? And if it's our experience, then they should be worrying more about the satisfaction of their students and investigating the claims rather than preserving their image and demonizing naysayers. So gripe away, my friend!

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  2. "The reality is that nobody who has any particular stock on our future will probably be reading, any way, so what does it matter what we write?"

    Yeah, but that doesn't mean they can't find out (especially, if something out of the ordinary happens and word gets around on the internets). Anyway, I'm sure it'll be fine. I look forward to your experiences. Maybe we could coordinate so your Dr. X is the same Dr. X I write about.

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  3. Yeah, I suppose you're right. And I'm usually pretty good about using pseudonyms to hide the identity of my subjects, but I guess if somebody really wanted to and dug a little below the surface, they could probably surmise who or what I was talking about. I'll try to keep my inflammatory comments to more reasoned criticisms, I suppose...

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  5. Thanks John, I've already chosen a med school... so no ads please.

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