“What problems are young people having
today?” I was asked at a harmless social get-together at the home of the dean
of admissions.
The
problem for young people today is the
Harvard Medical School
admissions committee. People this bright and accomplished shouldn’t have to be
begging for a job in medicine. It shouldn’t be so hard. There should be more
clearly defined, simple paths for people to be of use. That so many young
people want to be doctors speaks well for the families producing intact
applicant and for medicine for attracting them, but I can’t help feeling that
there should be a broader array of choices. People that intelligent who have
worked that hard should be able to be doctors if they want to. What exactly is
the point of producing an abundance of amazingly capable people if we don’t
have things for them to do? Two hundred years ago being able to read and write
a little, being healthy and having a work ethic, meant you could do well at
just about anything.
It
shouldn’t be so hard for people to figure out what to do with their lives.
“What the hell are we going to do with Timmy?”
“I
don’t know. Do you think we could get him into med school?”
Every Nobel laureate was once a goofy sixteen- or twenty-two-year-old
whose family worried about what the hell or she was going to end up doing.
I
have had heartbreakingly accomplished patients kill themselves or become heroin
addicts. It’s not enough to play an instrument perfectly or to get a full
scholarship.
As
soon as a new hurdle is set on the path to getting into medical school (organic
chemistry, higher and higher GPAs, higher and higher board scores,
extracurriculars, community service, moving personal stories, et cetera), the
ability to clear the hurdle spreads through the applicant pool like the ability
to resist penicillin spreads through a petri dish. Everybody is throwing a lot
of pasta up against the wall hoping that it will stick. Any essay that works
will be reworked and reworked and reworked some more.
Some
applicants were accused of trophy collecting. It wasn’t enough to be a concert
pianist, work in a first-rate research lab, or save a small South American
village. It had to come from the heart.
After
watching so many candidates I liked go up in flames I suggested to the dean
that each committee member be allowed to advance one applicant a year to the
final pool without the usual debate. He thought it was a good idea and would
bring it up to the committee.
Is a
doctor really that special a thing to be, or are we making too big a deal of
this? It’s like we’re all scrambling to get to a place a little higher up on
some slippery pyramid because we don’t know how high the water will be when the
tide comes back in.
Mark Vonnegut M.D.
Just
Like Someone Without Mental Illness Only More So