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BMJ 2004;329:294 (31 July), doi:10.1136/bmj.329.7460.294
| The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below. |
EDITORRather than add my advice to the deluge that met the magnificent, international group of young people who came together last month to propose improvements for the academic medicine of tomorrow,1 I pose a question to them: "Why, on earth, should you take any advice from any of us old farts who (through inattention, greed, or simple incompetence) got academic medicine into the simply awful mess in which you find it today?"
We have rejected the provision of continuous, comprehensive care and middling incomes in favour of huge waiting lists, unethical self referral for costly diagnostic tests, and industry-consultantships that pervert our science as profoundly as they line our pockets.
We continue to apply curriculums that value memory above thought, promote study by fear rather than reason, and sentence postgraduates to years of servitude in the educationally "lost generation."
We value the study of adenine, thymine, cytosine, and
David L Sackett, director
Trout Research and Education Center at Irish Lake, RR 1, Markdale, ON, Canada N0C 1H0 sackett@bmts.com
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Israeli students are refusing to perform intimate examinations on anaesthetised women without their informed consent.