Posted on 09/05/2004 4:22:12 PM PDT by freedom44
The medical profession used to be the preserve, give or take an interloper or two, of the white middle class male. Surgeons were supposedly like Sir Lancelot Spratt, as played by James Robertson Justice, and general practitioners like Dr Cameron, as played by Andrew Cruikshank. Indeed, the exclusiveness of the medical preserve was one of the criticisms levelled at the profession as a whole by reformists. Whether white males served the population well or badly was quite beside the point: they were seen to be operating an old boys' network in order to retain their privileges.
Not for very much longer. White males, despite being 43 per cent of the population, comprise only 26 per cent of medical students. Whether you think this is a good, bad or indifferent thing depends on how seriously you take the idea that the ethnic composition of every rank in society ought exactly to coincide with the ethnic composition of society as a whole. Should you or shouldn't you worry about the fact that there are no professional footballers of Indian subcontinental origin, or that there are so few Chinese prisoners in our jails?
Irrespective of whether it matters, what accounts for the forthcoming decline in the numerical, and no doubt intellectual, predominance of white males in the British medical profession?
There are two possible explanations, which are not mutually incompatible. The first is the decline in academic performance, relative to other groups, of young white males. If places in medical schools are allocated strictly according to examination results, then any such decline would be reflected in their numbers in the student body. And it is certainly possible that the young white male subculture in this country is not conducive to concerted academic effort. Studiousness is not, after all, among the principal characteristics of the new laddishness. The children of several (though not by any means all) ethnic minorities, as well as girls, strive harder at school, and therefore succeed better, than the young white males.
There is also the possibility that medicine as a profession is a less attractive career than it once was. Certainly, the number of applications for each place at medical school is falling, which would suggest that such is the case. Clever, diligent white males, who once might have become doctors, prefer to do something else. The relative loss of white males is actually a sign of the decreasing prestige of medicine as a career.
Certainly, this decrease is a trend that successive governments have tried to encourage: and, unlike most government efforts, it seems to have achieved its aim. Governments are afraid of doctors, because they are held in high esteem by the public, and they might at some time seriously oppose the government. If the government cannot improve the health service, it can at least destroy the medical profession, which is the next best thing from its slightly peculiar standpoint.
Patients have therefore been encouraged officially to regard themselves as customers or consumers, rather than as people seeking advice and help from trusted professionals. And more and more, doctors are expected not to think for themselves and do what they think is right, as members of true learned professions should, but to act as part of the conveyor belt delivering central government policy to the population. They are technical clerks.
Not only are the financial rewards of medicine declining compared with other jobs, but the risks for doctors are growing ever greater. The public is litigious; the regulatory bodies are ever more bureaucratically intrusive and demanding; even the Crown Prosecution Service is adding its mite by insisting on prosecuting doctors more frequently than ever before for criminal negligence. Above all, doctors are increasingly beholden to bureaucrats, who are often their intellectual and moral inferiors.
Who wants to go through a lengthy and arduous training (though, further to reduce the prestige of the profession, the Government is trying to reduce the length and thoroughness of British medical education), only to find that he or she is simultaneously disrespected by the patients, the administrators and the Government, and subject to permanently mistrustful regulatory bodies of doubtful integrity? No wonder an ever larger proportion of the doctors in this country wish they had never gone into medicine in the first place, or fail to practise it once they have qualified, treating their medical degrees as people once treated their degrees in philosophy, history or literature as a sign of general intellectual competence rather than as the beginning of a career in the subject. While our doctors drop out, of course, doctors from poor foreign countries drop in. This is our ethical foreign policy.
No doubt those who see the whole of history as a tale of oppression by dead white males, from Plato to Ronald Reagan, will rejoice at or applaud the demise of the socially prominent white male doctor. But even they, when they are ill, will want their doctors to be as good as possible. There is nothing quite like serious illness, after all, for unmasking the frivolity of ideology. And if the social prestige of medicine is destroyed, it is quite likely that its quality will follow shortly afterwards. It is not that white males necessarily make the best doctors, of course; but if we don't want to be doctors, then you are in trouble.
Some scores for you.
http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0883611.html
Thanks for the info. Of course, not everybody takes the SAT, so the data is skewed.
The word 'data' is plural.
I think I saw more than one SAT score in the chart. :)
Actually, on checking just now I see that 'data' can be a singular word on occasion. However, as I remember the scientific journals I have published articles in in the last few years prefer the plural usage. I was taught the plural usage way back in the dark ages when I went to school. LOL
"Women are stupider than men eh? Maybe that is why a majorityh of law school graduates are now women. Maybe that is why women score higher than men on tests, including, although I am not sure, even in math."
Go ahead take offense, then when you calm down consider the facts and their effrct(s).
Fact: In about 1972The standards for admission to medical school WERE LOWERED because woman weren't making it in the numbers the leftist 'religious fanatics' felt that they should.
The effect, according to a thoracic surgeon writing in the NYPost a few years ago, is that males, who ARE IN FACT DIFFERENT FROM FEMALES in aggression and intelligence tended to go elsewhere to find the challenges that medicine no longer provided.
The result being that there are more and more avarage doctors who tended to become pediatricians and OBGYNs and FEWER of the sort of Doctor whose intelligence drive and skill (not to mention aggression)pushed back the frontiers of medicine as well as honeing the level of skill NECCESSARY to do the extremly difficult sorts of surgery that saves lives (Thoracic being one of them, he wrote that there were four--brain..etcetra).
The surgeons point was that when raw meritocracy dies males (forced by their unique nature)bail and find something else to do--something that challenges them, something that will allow them to find their own level among their peers.
The fact is that standards in ALL of the areas you cite were LONG AGO dumbed down to lift the female. As long ago as the late 19th century woman became doctors. These woman were ranked according to their marks in a meritocracy but the number was smalL and, to the chargrin of the leftist fanatics REMAINED SMALL DESPITE ALL ENCOURAGMENTS.
It's perfectly ok to describe woman as unique in many ways and uniquely talented in certain way but heaven forfend if there is anything unique about the idiot, despised male.
Males are the ones who are moved to climb a mountain 'because it is there'. They'll cross a barrier like the Bering strait because they DON'T know what is on the other side of it--they will look at the moon and find a way to it. Woman can imitate this sort of behavior but they can't ORIGINATE it. Which is why as columnist Maggie Gallagher (sp?) pointed out not long ago: "When woman enter a field that field loses prestige." THAT is a reflection of a VERY BIG DIFFRENCE between males and females. Like it or not.
"And why would that be an issue if they dominated or not? I just want to know, is the WASP doctor going to be a good doctor or a bad doctor. He can be an Arab with the last name "Bin Laden" and reek of gunpowder, I just want to know if he would take good care of me."
There's not a difference - and you're right, as long as he or she is competent it doesn't matter. My point is that most surgeons are still white males, which doesn't seem to be the case in England...
AMEN, this article is such a load.
I couldn't care less if my doctor is white, brown, black, yellow, or green for that matter if they can help me when I need it.
The Doc who did my double lamenectomy (sp?) (Removal of 2 disks in my back) was Indian. This guy rocked. Recovery time was as short as possible, and he damn near hovered over me through most of my hospital stay.
:) Don't even get me started on the PERFECT 10 Nurse who waited on me hand and foot. Suffice it to say, she made that crappy hospital food worth the stay.
Did I mention she is Filipino?
Geez, people get hung up on such retarded issues.
I went to a very prestigious and selective law school, admitted in 1974. At that time, woman made up about 20% of the class, and were about as distinguished intellectually as the men, and about as represented on Law Review. I really saw no substantive difference.
Come on people, let's get off this crap. This is dangerous.
More comments are on this thread.
How so? Enlighten us, newbie.
Some of the posts on this thread smack of racism!! Although I like The Telegraph as a grteat read, I am somewhat dismayed at the insinuation that if you are not a WASP, then the quality of healthcare will suffer. I would be more concerned with how many jewish doctors are quitting the profession or following other vocations than a WASP!
I like the Newbie reference.
cheers
'I would be surprised if woman entrants to med school and law school are less qualified than men per the numbers. But if you have "data" suggesting that there is a plus factor for admission to law and med schools based on gender, I would love to see it.'
Which of the words I wrote didn't you get? Am I making it up? The standards in Medicine, in Law, in law Enforcement, in firefighting in Officers School in the military, in Engineering electrical, machanical etc.. WERE LOWERED TO ACHIVE AN OUTCOME.
This has been going on for over thirty years. It has been written about and pointed out and ridiculed and wailed over for OVER THIRTY YEARS. EXACTLY what is happening now was pridicted OVER THIRTY YEARS AGO. If you want data for the sky being blue go get it yourself--or check in with Maggie Gallagher or any one of the scores of woman who have been writing upon the subject for decades. For my part I can't even believe we're still discussing ths as though it's some new un-written about thing.
Society has lost control of male aggression. It is on it's own out there doing whatever the hell it wants, creating it's own definitions and standards for it's conduct. I can assure you that what it is coming up with no woman will want a part of; trust me on this one, if, being a male, I'm not in your view too much of a moron to bother to trust.
anyone realize the reason could be becaues of money hungry hungry Sl%$ lawyers, Edwards for instance made more money inthe last 10 years than I hope to im my life
Still waiting for the verifying data that less qualified women are getting into law school and med school over more qualified men.
I would add, that it is American men who defend the freedoms that make all the those opportunities possible for American women. Without those men, all other arguments are moot.
I believe "white male" can easily apply to Jewish physicians. We're talking about a cultural divide here, not a racial issue.
If you're not a newbie, then please, let us know your previous screen name.
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