Non-enemies of the people

As a lawyer I know one can always come up with a form of words to justify anything at all. Still, it’s disconcerting to be outdone at our own game by the people responsible for training doctors: Medical School Leadership Urges Race-Based Consideration. Do look at the arguments and ask yourself whether you want those people training your doctor.

Ibsen’s An Enemy of the People is a wonderful dramatization of how those who run organized society fall into ways of thought that make it possible in good conscience to ignore any inconvenient truth whatever. The protagonist is a doctor who puts obvious professional duty over politics and gets all but driven out of town. It seems that the leaders of medical education have seen the play, and decided to avoid Dr. Stockmann’s problems by pre-emptive surrender. Not heroic or even minimally professional, but why should they be different from other people?

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