CounterPOINT: If you have to take drugs to study, you shouldn’t be in Medical School
Tony Lassaletta M'07They say that plumbers have the worst pipes. Perhaps they’re
just too busy fixing everybody else’s. I suppose it’s similar
to walking out of the hospital and seeing that group of doctors and nurses
puffing away under the “No Smoking Within 20 Feet of This Building”
sign. It has become apparent to all of us, not only through stereotypes,
but also from observation, that doctors don’t always make the best
heath decisions for themselves. Perhaps it’s related to the phenomenon
that police cars never use their blinkers, or stop for pedestrians.
We all worked very hard to get into medical school, studied
for weeks on end for the MCATS, perhaps drove hundreds of miles for interviews,
and by the looks of the line at Dunkin’ Donuts between 10:00 and 10:15am,
most of us acquired a caffeine addiction somewhere along the way. Hopefully,
we also acquired excellent study skills and the self-discipline to stay
on track. I don’t think any of us were expecting medical school to
be easy, no matter what Ivy-league school we went to or how elite our major
was; we all knew medical school was going to be harder.
Studying has never been my forte, and to be frank, I probably
studied more last semester than I did getting an engineering degree, but
that’s OK, this is medical school. I work hard, stay up late, wake
up early, and have fun when I can. However, one thing I don’t do is
take drugs to stay focused. The rising popularity of amphetamines on college
campuses and in our medical school reminds me of Junior High when I first
heard someone publicly talking about masturbation. The seal of “no
one talks about it but everybody does it” was broken, and slowly,
more and more people admitted to doing it, or at least went home and tried
it themselves to see what all the hoopla was about.
I may be a bit naive, but I was extremely surprised to
find that this was not only a popular, but acceptable practice in medical
school (taking amphetamines that is, not masturbation). We are going to
be doctors, developing a dependence on amphetamines should not be on our
agenda, and as for the excuse that it’s only to study to get through
the first year, or first two for that matter, is absurd. I don’t believe
that our schedules are going to get any easier after medical school, so
do we plan on taking amphetamines for the rest of our careers? Seeing our
patients on a fix? Many of us have physicians in our families, for those
of you who don’t, let me fill you in; medical school is much more
low stress for us than for our predecessors. We have a pass/fail system
and we’re all going to graduate, that my friends and colleagues, is
a luxury to know. I’m sure we all graduated at the top 10% of our
class and scored well above the mean on our MCATS, why then do we suddenly
feel the need to take drugs so that we can get honors in medical school?
Not only are we engaging in self-destructive behavior, but it’s not
fair to those who don’t take amphetamines to study for 20 hour blocks
of time.
We all find it difficult to pay attention for 6 hours of lecture followed by a 4-hour anatomy lab and 2 of physical diagnosis, and it’s not easy to spend 3 straight days reading 200 pages of physiology notes printed with low toner. I’m sure we can all go to our physician and honestly list our textbook symptoms of ADD, but the bottom line is, few of us probably have ADD for which we need medication. We’re in medical school, it’s supposed to be challenging, and the use of amphetamines is not only a sign of disrespect for yourself, but to your classmates and future patients as well. I know I wouldn’t want to go to any doctor that had to take drugs to study in medical school, whether he got honors across the board or not; just like I don’t want to see an amazing baseball season if it’s due to steroids and testosterone patches. It’s lying, and it’s cheating.
Hopefully, I’ll continue seeing everyone in line
at Dunkin’ Donuts between classes instead of in line at CVS getting
a prescription refilled. I think we need to be in the mindset that we are
future doctors, not just medical students. We not only have a future duty
to our patients and profession, but a present one. I’d like to think
that when we’re practicing physicians, Starbuck’s stock will
have gone up, and when we walk under the “No Smoking” sign outside
the building, the people with cigarettes in their hands won’t be wearing
white coats.