Anti-thought, but still essential. Outside of my professional life, I actually believe that higher education of the university/college sort has become over-productised and consequently, many people who probably would benefit from not attending are leaving an institute with more questions and debt than prior to entering.
HOWEVER, healthcare professionals are firmly in the group who benefit from University and the rigours attached to the relevant courses. Unfortunately, the preparation has a major flaw…it prepares us for service delivery without the capacity to generate original thought.
Now, I can appreciate the importance of being able to provide a highly efficient healthcare service and sure, a population of pondering polymaths might not be super conducive to that outcome. But, as society has evolved throughout the centuries we are seeing physicians, nurses and other medics move from pioneering medical frontiers to becoming the weapon of execution for technological and system frontiers.
Again, I understand population growth, rate of societal development etc etc all play factors but we may be witnessing an overcorrection where the people with the greatest frontline exposure have or express the least capacity to create original thought. And who’s to blame? The same way universities were the breeding ground for great medical free thought in the 1700s (having taken that role from the church within a western context), they are now the breeding ground of the ‘consume-assimilate-regurgitate’ (CAR) culture that now presides within our medical higher learning institutions.
The unfortunate fallout from all of this is that the medical professions will eventually see attrition in their prestige and therefore influence. This is doubly problematic because not many other sectors are taking oaths to keep the human race harm free…a la we surreptitiously are morphed into corporate pawns and slaves to alternative agendas.
Dr. Uche
