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LETTERS: Paola Albertazzi Academic medicine: time for reinvention: Hogwarts may be a useful analogy for improvement BMJ 2004; 328: 46-c-47-c [Full text]

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Hogwart's Analogy is fine really

Madhu Chittarvu   (6 January 2004)

Academic Imposters at Hogwarts

Matthew Cooke   (6 January 2004)

Hogwart's Analogy is fine really 6 January 2004
Madhu Chittarvu, consultant physician Hyderabad-500013 India Send response to journal: Re: Hogwart's Analogy is fine really	I have read all the five Harry potter books and I am fascinated by them.Yes we have some Guildroy Lockharts and Lucius Malfoys in our midst.The academics who do not touch a patient and give exuberant powerpoint slide shows on more and more RCTs and trials with fancy acronyms.For them whatever we do and prescribe is still out of date.As if the new megatrials have invalidated all that was old and being practised until now.Yes.. we are like Hagrids... a bit clumsy and haggard, but with a heart of gold and love for all creatures grotesque or ugly or exotic.Yes... the ideal doctor or director of a hospital must be like Dumbledore with love for fairplay and no hesitation to be a little uncoventional to help truth and justice and merit.Yes I adore Prof Dumbledore! But I would like to be Harry Potter himself with secret powers unknown to he himself but slowly flowering skills within himself.Hate things which are really hippocritical and pedantic.. yes some time making up a few imaginative things to please Professors like Mrs.Trewalaney the divination teacher who always has predilection for negative prophesies only. Competing interests: A fan of Harry potter books and Ms.JK Rowling
Academic Imposters at Hogwarts 6 January 2004
Matthew Cooke, Reader in Emergency Medicine Warwick Medical School, Coventry, CV4 7AL, UK Send response to journal: Re: Academic Imposters at Hogwarts	Dr Albertazzi makes the comparison of medical academics to the Professors at Hogwarts. He includes the Professor Lucius type who is "likely to have obtained the position through political slyness or family ties but never because of the quality of research" Lucius was not a professor but a governor at Hogwarts- and so Dr Albertazzzi highlights the other group, those with no academic credentials but the desire to be seen as such. As an academic, I am pleased to see therefore that true academic positions would not be achieved in such a way. Competing interests: None declared