What’s up with premed altruism and nobility?

As I have mentioned many times before, I feel like our education system was developed with altruism and nobility at its core. I have seen it all the way from elementary school to undergraduate university (though obviously much less so at higher levels at education). While I think it’s nice that we’re taught to do “good” things, I think it is very problematic when this obsession with an ideal world clouds our ability to think rationally and critically. One of the most common examples I remember is being taught over and over again that “desiring money makes you a bad person”, etc. I don’t want to talk about money today because that’s a big topic I want to save for another day, but suffice to say, I think making simplistic statements like “desiring money makes you a bad person” is pretty ridiculous and dangerous, especially at a time when we should be helping young people to think instead of shoving ridiculous statements with no context down their throats. I’ll just stop here with the whole money thing and say that if you’re going to judge someone, judge them based on not just how they use money, but also realize that there is diversity in personal preference regarding luxury and even diversity in how that relates to our moral obligations to share with others.

I am not saying altruism is a bad thing. Being unselfish and serving others is something I highly respect and value, and is an important quality we all need to have at one point or another, particularly in the medical profession. It does become problematic, however, when you start taking it to the extreme and believing that only altruism is good and selfishness is bad in everything.

We all need to be selfish at some point, and anyone who denies ever being selfish needs a reality check. If you’re reading my blog right now (and I’m assuming because you want to and find enjoyment/value in it), I dare you to ask yourself whether this isn’t a selfish act considering that you could be out volunteering or cleaning up the park or something more altruistic. If you agree with me that we can’t be altruistic all the time (or that even if we could, it’s unhealthy), then let’s keep going forward. Clearly, there are times when altruism isn’t in our best interests and it has nothing to do with being a good or bad person – sometimes it’s just a choice.

Altruism can be good and all, but how altruistic we are and when we are is going to be situation dependent. Even doctors need to be selfish and take care of themselves – they need to go home, see their families, rest, etc. A stressed out, tired, unhappy doctor is not going to be good for his or her patients. Balance is important.

Premed Altruism

I feel like in many instances premed students (i.e. students interested in applying to medical school) are overly altruistic and over apply the principle in situations that don’t warrant it. I’m not generalizing and saying all of them do this (because don’t), but I see it often enough that I feel it’s important to address. Basically, because of a combination of the idealism taught in our education system and how many young people think about the ideal, altruistic, selfless, noble physician (again, this is just my theory on why this happens), it seems as if a number of premeds place altruism above all else, to the point where the concept is irrationally misapplied. It might help to use an example.

Application Advice/Consulting: To Charge or Not to Charge?

I remember reading a thread on a well-known Canadian premed online forum about a new consulting company started by medical students for medical school applicants. The thread turned into a massive train wreck with a bunch of posters attacking the thread starter, basically crying that it was selfish to charge applicants for application advice/consulting, especially when there are “free help services” available. Well of course it’s selfish – then again, depending on your views, everything we do can be classified as selfish, but I don’t want to go down that philosophical path. Nevertheless, some people believe that as future, “altruistic”, physicians we should also have the altruism to not charge for providing consulting/admissions help – I hope you can see why that’s sort of a ridiculous claim.

It seems to me that it all comes back to money (oops, I thought I could get away from it). It seems as if some premeds believe that wanting money in exchange for a service is somehow wrong (what?) and that everyone should be offering help for free, especially people who are going to be future physicians (it’s not like physicians get paid, right?). But sarcasm aside, I hope you can see what’s wrong with this picture.

There’s nothing wrong with giving free help with medical school applications, but there’s also nothing wrong with charging for it. If people want to go ahead and pay for a service that they think will help them, what’s the big deal? Also, just because some services (e.g. interview help at your university’s support centre or something) are free, does not mean they are necessarily equal in quality to what might be provided by those charging (and in the same way, it doesn’t mean they aren’t better either – but there’s no reason to be narrow minded about any of your options). Again, it seems like there’s some sort of taboo with money, which is very weird considering that it seems holding down any job other than something to do with medical school admissions is somehow fine.

I mean, these are often times the same people who payed more than a thousand dollars for a MCAT preparation course – why is it okay for that to be a business but not medical school admissions consulting? This type of inconsistency in thought boggles my mind.

I mean, if I decided to charge people to read the articles on my blog, would that make me a bad person? I really don’t see how anyone could argue that. If I am providing some sort of value (which I think I am), and people are willing to pay for it, what’s wrong with that? Granted, people who cant’ afford to or don’t want to pay would be upset, but that has nothing to do with me being a good or bad person. I mean, I don’t hate Porsche because I can’t afford to buy their cars – I don’t think they are bad people because they make cars I can’t afford.

Picking Courses to Get Good Marks

There always seems to be a hot debate about premeds about how to go about picking your undergrad courses, and it’s often quite the dichotomy: do we pick courses that we think we’ll get good marks in, or should we be picking courses that interest us regardless of their difficulty?

Despite all the bickering that often goes on, and the argument of nobility that people should be studying in undergrad to learn and not for marks, the fact is that your education is whatever you want it to be. There’s nothing wrong with studying to learn or studying for marks. It’s your choice.

Yet for some reason, there is a prevalent feeling that those who who pick courses to get good marks are “bad” people undeserving of going to medical school and who will have a “rude awakening” when they realize they can’t handle the workload of medicine because they had an easy time in undergrad – that undergrad is about a time for challenging yourself. I mean, if that’s your philosophy that’s fine, but realize that’s no more correct than the philosophy that undergrad is about getting marks – because it’s your education and no one else’s.

It’s not like there is some absolute, universal truths about what postsecondary education is for, so it makes no sense for people to claim there is a right or wrong way to go about getting one.

Do what you want, but realize the consequences, that’s all. If you’re willing to sacrifice your marks for interest, that’s your choice. Ditto for sacrificing interest for marks. Both are fine, do what you want.

So what?

All I’m saying is we got to be rational about things and not project opinions on other people as if they are facts or universal truths.