Counterpunch June 12, 2012 How Medical Schools fight Democracy Slave Doctors for Capitalism by BRIAN McKENNA “If the structure does not permit dialogue the structure must be changed.” – Paulo Freire I begin by sharing an excerpt from a stunning speech by Leon Eisenberg, MD, in which he spoke truth to power before approximately 300 medical students, educators and administrators at Michigan State University. Here is Eisenberg: “Like the ancient Greeks there will soon be two types of doctors, slave doctors and free doctors. Which will it be for you?” Slave doctors are those who dutifully marched to the orders of bean counters and bureaucrats, practicing “cookbook medicine,” seeing 40 patients a day, Eisenberg said. Free doctors placed people’s humanity front and center. He explained they fully understood the dictum that, “medicine is a social science, politics by other means, and politics nothing but medicine on a grand scale,” a phrase uttered by the 19th century socialist, Dr. Rudolph Virchow, he said. Eisenberg cited Virchow as one of his medical heroes, and then, echoing his hero, delivered a lecture that accused the medical profession of fostering a “hidden curriculum” which socialized students to keep quiet in the face of unethical behavior. The audience, and I, sat there frozen. “Four out of five medical students witness unethical practices among their peers, but most find themselves afraid to challenge behavior which they privately deplored,” he told us. Eisenberg described biomedical education as a system of “cultural indoctrination” in which “the first year student is reluctant [to speak out],” against injustice while the third year student does not even hear [about] it.” He said that this socialization experience helps to create conservative medical providers. “Courage and morality,” he said, “atrophy with misuse.” I recorded Eisenberg’s words in the final months of my ethnography (1992-1998) of medical education at MSU (McKenna, 1998, 2010). It was the first time in five years of research that I’d heard anyone in my fieldwork mention Virchow’s name, a name I knew very well. So rare were the truths he spoke that day, so unexpected, that they deserve close scrutiny. In fact, my anthropological study of medical education, presented below, corroborates the essence of his statements, and more. As I was to discover, sustained critical dialogue about social problems and the politics of medicine is seldom permitted in medical “education” curricula. One might think that such a spectacular project would have had quite an impact on the medical schools (there were two medical schools at MSU, an allopathic and an osteopathic). But today if you ask around the campus, it’s as though the $6 million C/UHP never existed! A great many of the culture’s brightest young people, desperate for secure futures while wanting to do good, are turning to medicine. What is going on in that “black box” of medical schooling? full: http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/06/12/slave-doctors-for-capitalism/
_______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
