I read an interesting essay once, entitled: The Pre-Med as a Metaphor of Antipathy. The author was (IIRC) a basic-science professor trying to understand why pre-meds were such jerks, and whether the qualities selected for by the pre-med process were necessarily the ones that would make for an exemplary physician. Taking the pre-med curriculum was among the most depressing experiences of my life - a relentlessly grinding, competitive exercise in rote memorization of material that held little interest or applicability for me. I felt bad for people who took organic chemistry and biology because they were actually interested in those subjects - they were trampled in a horde of people who had come from the top of their high school classes and were trying to beat the curve, inexorably normed to a C+/B-, to get into med school.I certainly witnessed a reasonable amount of cheating, and I'm sure there were more egregious things happening out of plain sight. I was amazed, when I took the MCATs, at the level of security and anti-cheating measures in place. They did basically everything except a retinal scan, but I suppose such things are necessary. The question, of course, is whether such learned behaviors and coping mechanisms can be switched off. '''''' Talk