In my last two posts (Part 1 and Part 2), I explored the research paradigm of American medical training. The takeaway was that research requirements may create inefficiencies that have a host of consequences, including an unnecessarily long training process, a potential physician shortage, and
In my last post, I discussed points brought up by Ezekiel Emanuel, MD, PhD, and John Ioannidis, MD, about research in medicine. The takeaway was that students are strongly incentivized to do research during their training, but those incentives don’t necessarily reward high-quality work. Furthermore, they don’t directly contribute
It is a truism of American medical education that students should do research. Stanford medical school’s website espouses a “strong commitment to student research,” because it makes us “valued members of any medical field.” A similar message can be found at almost any other institution.
Akhilesh Pathipati is a second-year medical student at the Stanford School of Medicine. He is originally from Sacramento, California, and graduated from Harvard College in 2013. While in medical school, Akhilesh has published articles in the Sacramento Bee and the Stanford Scope Blog. Here, Akhilesh
Many aspects of medicine have changed over the course of human history. Schools of thought shifted from humorism to evidence-based medicine, while the standard of care evolved from bleeding to our modern cornucopia of interventions. Yet across centuries, the doctor-patient relationship has remained relatively constant