Circular Reform I

Obviously, Dupont needs to change the way it educates its students. I'm not talking about obvious, low risk, and brilliant moves, like rehiring Dr. X. That's far too petty. Rather, DuPont needs to completely rejigger its curriculum, and in doing so leapfrog ahead of other medical schools and have:

THE CURRICULUM OF THE 21ST CENTURY

We got a speech on this matter from one of the GRAND POOBAHs of the medical establishment.^1 It occured at noon, after a morning's worth of classes. Lunch, paradoxically, was not served. One of the constants of medical school is that when they want you to do something, there's free food. Nonetheless, the entire 250-seat auditorium was filled, with numerous upperclassmen sitting on the stairs. First, the dean got up and introduced the poobah. They went through this guy's whole pedigree (Harvard, Harvard, Harvard, Harvard, Harvard, Harvard, Harvard, Harvard, Harvard, Harvard, Harvard, Harvard)^2 Note that he's ~60 years old. Is that philosophy conversation he had with Chas during the Eisenhower administration really this important? Fortunately, they also went over all the crap he's done since then.

About midway through the resume, I was struck by a thought, "How cool is it that we live in the age of empiricism, where all the resume in the world does no good if the data is against you?" And I resolved that I wouldn't believe a thing unless I got the data. I have a grad class where people will refuse to give any credence to a paper because there's a shadow in one of the gels. Should we require the same standard before we muck up a generation of Dupont grads?

1 Saying who would be too much, but this was one of the top 20 people in medical education. Think deans of medical education, AAMC apparatchiks, medical education 'experts,' psychology types etc.
2 That's preschool, grade school, high school, undergraduate, post-baccalaureate research, MD, PhD, residency, fellowship, professoriate, chairmanship, initiative directorship, and deanship. As I wasn't taking notes, my rendition may be slightly innnacurate.