The Message America's Future Doctors Need to Hear
Common Sense | Vinay Prasad
Prasad, a professor at UCSF med school, argues that “The University of Michigan medical students who walked out of their white coat ceremony missed a transcendent lecture about staying human in an age of machines.” The article discusses how walking out on a speaker due to her pro-life views meant missing out on invaluable advice regarding their future role as doctors — advice that that could have had a profound impact on how these students learn and practice medicine. It also signals a warning for how these future doctors will deal with patients who may have different views than their own.
As Prasad explains, “out of some 3,000 faculty at Michigan, Dr. Collier was chosen by students and her peers to be this year’s White Coat Ceremony speaker.” The students walked out despite being told Dr. Collier would not address abortion at the ceremony.
“I do not share Dr. Collier’s faith or her views on abortion,” writes Prasad. “But ultimately, the decision of students to walk out of the lecture because they disagree with the speaker on another topic has no limit… If students walk out on speakers discussing unrelated issues, where does it end? Would they learn about the nephron from a nephrologist who favors strict immigration limits? Could they learn how to perform CPR from an instructor who lobbied to keep schools open during Covid-19?”
What is most at risk is patients, argues Prasad: “Most concerning, what does it mean for American patients, if their future doctors cannot sit through a speech by a beloved professor who has a different view on abortion? Could you trust a physician knowing that they may judge you for holding views that they deem beyond the pale?”
The White Coat ceremony is when “students put on their white coats for the first time, take a modified Hippocratic oath and begin the long path to becoming a doctor.”
