Would-be medical students: screw the patients; make us doctors
"Would-be California medical students with learning disabilities filed a discrimination suit Monday saying their prospects of becoming doctors are being thwarted because they aren't given enough time on the medical school entrance exam.
The proposed class-action suit was filed in Alameda County Superior Court by four students and two advocacy groups. It argues that students who have trouble reading are capable of learning and practicing medicine, provided they're given enough time to complete the Medical College Admission Test in a distraction-free setting."
When I read this, I wondered whether these would-be students had thought beyond their own needs to consider the needs of their potential patients.
In the facility where I work, the patients are high-acuity; the staff face not infrequent clinical crises and the environment is often fairly described as organized chaos. In emergencies, physicians must think on their feet and make quick decisions.
When your loved one requires urgent medical care, do you want him attended to by a physician who needs a distraction-free setting and more time than his peers to absorb facts and render judgments? I don't.
During our most recent "code" -- the standard euphemism for a crashing patient -- we had 5 RNs, 1 respiratory therapist and 1 pharmacist at the bedside. We not only bombarded the attending physician with information, we also repeatedly posed questions. Those questions required prompt answers.
During a code, the level of stress and anxiety among even experienced personnel will rise appreciably. (I've been an RN for more than a decade, but I have yet to participate in a code in which my heart was not in my throat.) When faced with the danger of losing a patient, the team looks to the attending physician for leadership. She must command its trust and respect and inspire its confidence. If the members of the team sense incompetence, ignorance or undue hestitation from her, their anxiety will rise still further, they will begin to look to one another for guidance and the chaos will lack organization.
It is exasperating to see ostensibly aspiring professionals consumed only with their "rights" and without respect for their limits. Not everyone can be a doctor. The California medical students miss the point: even if they get the accomodation they seek and pass the exam, they will not always have the benefit of time and the absence of distraction when making decisions on which the lives of others will hinge.
Entrance exams are clocked for a reason. They test not only your knowledge, but also your response to the pressures of time. Even if these students get a court to rig the rules of the exam, the court cannot rig the rules of the bedside.
I'm sorry that these students have a learning disability that prevents them from meeting the customary requirements of becoming a doctor. I'm likewise sorry for the blind man who had hoped to pilot a commerical airliner. But in neither case would I sacrifice the safety of others to satisfy their personal ambitions.
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