Medical school, critical thinking, and power

[Renoir]

Excellent article, excerpt from the subheading "the limits of the humanities", about 3/4 through the article

 

Globe and Mail

 

"...Nav Persaud, a family-medicine resident and graduate of University of Toronto medical school who also studied philosophy and psychology at Oxford, is well placed to compare and contrast. “I think I'd worry far more about philosophy students than medical students,” he says. “I seem to recall rubbing shoulders with far more misanthropes in philosophy class than in medical school.”

 

Critical thinking was a key part of Dr. Persaud's medical education, along with training in ethical behaviour. Students are evaluated according to how well they interact with patients, he says, and if people find their doctors cold and aloof, that's because “you're trained in your professional life to focus on the facts necessary to make a professional decision. But in the end, the overall goal is to help people, to be mindful of what's best for them.”

 

Which, of course, makes it seem even more perplexing when someone like Dr. Sher is charged, or when 29-year-old British National Health Service doctor Bilal Abdullah was convicted in 2008 of trying to kill Londoners outside a West End nightclub before attempting a suicide attack on the Glasgow airport the next day.

 

“As a physician, I feel shame when another physician is charged,” Dr. Persaud says. “There's a big disconnect. It's definitely hard to reconcile with what a doctor does taking care of patients on a daily basis.”

 

Searching for a connection, he glimpses it not in medicine as such but in the glory perceived to be associated with the job. “Some people are attracted to the idea of becoming a doctor because it's a respected position in society. And maybe that need for recognition has a counterpart in the praise and notoriety you might get from a subset of people who support terror.”... "

[bloh]

What is the point of the thread? Would you like to tell us your opinion, stance and perhaps dissect what you want us to discuss?