Too many notes

Are medical students expected to read too many books? Or are their complaints as legitimate as those of the emperors who thought that the Marriage of Figaro had “too many notes”?

Some years ago an educator looked into the matter. He found that if students were indeed to read everything they were told to they would have no time left for even eating, sleeping, or washing. To avoid such an unsanitary disaster, the editor of the journal publishing these findings recommended cutting down on the length of prescribed reading lists, instructing students to do computer searches …