ken explains the hidden curriculum: lone wolf studying in an age of specialists

I asked a nurse his greatest complaint about doctors:

"I wish doctors would communicate better with each other."

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Nothing we learn in med school is that complicated. Take this anatomy slide we have to learn:

There's nothing to understand about the seven nerves that go through the greater sciatic foramen, it's a list. The best way to gain this sort of low level knowledge is to solo studying. Make up a mnemonic, repeat it to yourself fifty times, write on a white board, whatever.  

Whenever people ask me questions about the material I usually want to tell them: "Dude you're over-thinking this, just memorize the words, and you'll be fine." I'd love to understand the concepts underlying cell signaling, that's why I signed up for a PhD. But during M1.. ain't nobody got time for that. The list of things we need to memorize is endless, and we aren't even at second year yet. Do you really think you're going to be spending the time to understand the mechanism of every single antibiotic? I sure as hell won't be. 

Group learning is useful for solving complex problems like say, understanding basic science research papers. That's the kind of problem it'd be nice to tackle as a group. Science is supposed to be about the discovery of new ideas, and this sort of higher level knowledge demands collaboration between peers. Yet, everyone has to tackle the ME paper assignment by themselves. 

In med school - there's really zero incentive to work together. The lone wolf studying strategy is the most efficient way to do med school. And a lot of times, it's the only way to do med school. It's not like they let you take exams together. And frankly, that's what they want you to do. 

Who is they? It's abstract, but they is everyone that is cynical. Everyone that says, "Yeah, healthcare is messed up, but it's so big you can't do anything to fix it. You'll learn eventually." Everyone that wants you to leave med school dead to the world.

They want you to study by yourself and become obsessed with how well you understanding the material. ergo - stop caring about whether anyone else understands it. It sounds like a great system to develop overconfident get-mine solo practice doctors, but everyone knows there's too much paperwork to run a solo practice these days. We're also coming upon the age of specialists when collaboration will be at a premium. Think about a disease like diabetes - it's complex. You might need primary care physicians being the point guard for vascular surgeons, endocrinologists, physiatrists, opthalmologists, I could literally list every speciality. Not to mention nutritionists, personal trainers, policy makers...

Doctors are notorious for not playing well with others. Well, the root of the problem starts here in med school. Instead of talking with my classmates about complex medical problems like environmental exposure and diabetes, I'm spending every waking hour with my headphones on, noise-canceling the world, and sorting out meiosis. So I can get mine. 

That's your education at work. 

See you on the other side,

from ken

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