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Date:         Sun, 10 Jan 1993 13:23:55 -0600
From:         "Joel I. Shenker" <jshenker@S.PSYCH.UIUC.EDU>
Subject:      Don't go spastic on me folks

Hey, don't go sulking in the corner now!

Judging from some responses to my last posting, I really depressed or
surprised a few people.  Don't fret too much.  Listen.

First of all, I did not mean to imply that I think all people always
stereotype MD/PhDs or any other folks.  This would be simplistic folly,
I think.  But, I did want to point out that there are SOME folks out there,
more than I would have thought and more than I am comfortable with, who
will think they already know important things about me without ever looking
to ME to see if their assumptions hold true.  And, I wanted to point
out that the people who may be doing such stereotyping span the whole
range--colleages, students, departmental directors, government
folks, friends, family, and on it goes.

So, the point is that we shouldn't be too sure that what WE think we are
doing when we pursue the MD/PhD is what everyone ELSE will think we are
doing.

I should also point out that there are times when the sterotyping of
MD/PhDs gives un-tested positive assumptions too.  In my last post I
mentioned that some residencies were a bit leery of the MD/PhD
candidates relative to the MD candidates, and that this went on even at
some academic residencies.  In fairness, I should point out that the
person who relayed these observations to me was pursuing a residency in
one field, and it is one of the more competitive fields as well.
Other people I have known have found their MD/PhD background an apparent
asset in application to a large variety of residency programs.

I think that the important step we can all take from this state of
affairs is to not forget about this.  Most of the people reading this
are still students (as I am). In not so long a time, really, the people
who will be making the decisions about whom to hire and what policies to
pursue and what grants to fund and the like will be *US*.  We don't need
to be contentious or argumentative, or to show people up. I think it is
important to model what we consider appropriate conduct.  And, by asking
the right questions in the right ways, by engaging in the actions and
espousing the values we really hold, I think we can make a difference.

For example, if you encounter a person who thinks that MD/PhDs are less
competent in their clinical skills than their MD counterparts, and you
want to be an excellent clinician, THERE CAN BE NO BETTER WAY TO REFUTE
THE PERSON'S STEREOTYPE THAN IF YOU METHODICALLY AND DELIBERATELY GO
ABOUT THE BUSINESS OF BEING AN EXCELLENT CLINICIAN.  Stereotypes get
broken much more easily, I think, by clear and undeniable actions that
simply fly in the face of ill-found assumptions.  I mean, come on, we're
graduate students TOO, you know--let's use some of that scholarly, deliberate
empiricism that so many of us embrace in our critiques of journal articles or
designs of experiments or writing of papers and theses.

Frankly, I'm looking forward to the challenge of going out into the rest
of the world and seeing how much I can be as good as I can be, and what
cherished assumptions about how the way the world "must" work simply
don't hold up.  I imagine many of us will be doing such things.  I look
forward to bumping into a lot of you in the process!
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