Sellout
To hell with good intentions. Money. It’s what I want.
I think one of the most important things I’ve learned this year is that *money sets the rules.* I obviously had an idea of this, but it was really driven home today. So much that I’m not as against it as I was a year ago. There have been a number of experiences that have made me realize the power of money, mostly in influencing policy and regulations. As a student government representative, we had to devise a way to split up a very limited sum of money among 40+ student groups (how there are 40+ student groups in a school with 86 students per class shows you how overachiever we all are). The student government set the rules: groups only got X dollars per person for food, X dollars for copying expenses, for hiring speakers.
And at a reception for Dr. Sam LeBaron, the 2003 recipient of the Humanism in Medicine award, the Pfizer reps could not shut *up* about how great it is that _Pfizer_ can sponsor and promote such a great physician. Make no doubt about it–Dr. LeBaron is an amazing person and lives and breathes humanism, but the Pfizer reps made me sick to their stomach. The food and wine were nice, no doubt, but I could have sworn the reps were being paid per mention of Pfizer. The introduction went something like this:
bq(quote). Hi, I’m PeppyYoungBlondeWoman, and I’m from the Pfizer Pharmaceuticals company, in Pfizer’s Lipitor division. We at Pfizer are here today to present the 2003 award for Humanism in Medicine to Dr. LeBaron. Pfizer is so proud that Pfizer can be a part of this award; Dr. LeBaron is a wonderful man and echoes the values that Pfizer strives to achieve as well. Pfizer made a video… blah blah blah.
See? When you pay for the reception, they let you say what you want.
And most recently, I’ve seen the power of money when applying for a summer Med Scholars grant. My community health classmates and I wanted to do some program implementation with local community partners for the summer–our partners had identified a need for a new program, and we wanted to help them implement it. But the powers that be gave us a cold, quick DENIED. We had to do some sort of community research to be funded–implementation didn’t qualify for funding. We needed to do a survey and collect data. (Nevermind the fact that our community partners didn’t need surveys or data, they needed programs–that’s an entire argument unto itself.) The community health team did finally secure some money for us to do community work, but it was still frustrating. Our classmates choose to impact the field of medicine by doing research, to advance knowledge, test a drug or device, and because it’s research, they’re funded for it. But if I want to impact the health of a population by creating a program to provide patients with free medications to manage their chronic illnesses, it’s apparently not academic enough. No data. No rigor. Just helping patients. Again. He who holds the purse strings!
So. Let the money start rolling in. I still haven’t worked out how one attains wealth without being corrupted by it, however. And frankly, I don’t know that I’d be able to fight it myself.
kudos on getting funded. I’ve gotta wonder though, you’re in school to learn, there’s plenty of time in residency/post-training-real-world to implement. That said, I really enjoyed implementing a program to increase breast feeding in Brownsville, TX with other Brown Med students a decade ago.
The money will come. You don’t have to sell out! I spend a lot of my off hours volunteering in free med clinics.
This month, I came back to Newark, NJ, from my year of working right outside of DC, for my last year of med school. I was absolutely shocked to see several new buildings sprouting up on my medical school campus, including two new hugely funded cancer research buildings. I can’t help getting a bit angry about that, as we’re a state medical school that is supposed to a greater responsibility to the neighborhood and city and county it’s in.
Cancer research is EXTREMELY important, yes, but if you compare the $$ spent by the school/hospital on that versus actually doing something to serve the greater Newark community here and now, it’s pathetic. So many things don’t need new research right now — we need to IMPLEMENT innovative public health programs and services.
I’m going to post on this in more detail on the to the teeth weblog, but your post reminded me of this. I also was interested in learning and practicing public health (instead of bench research) between my 1st and 2nd year summers. I got to do some of that, coupled with some public health research with GIS software that would allow for the hospital to better serve the community. But it’s frustrating — often times our medical school administrations don’t even know the first thing about non-bench-research work. It’s our culture.
And about Enoch’s comment — I’d have to disagree with the statement that med school may not be the place to implement. It’s all real-live practice for the real thing, and it’s a great learning experience, probably more rewarding and challenging than bench research.
RE the Pfizer experience — this is the way of the world. The money has to come from somewhere — if you get a gov’t grant, that $$ has come from taxing people and corporations, who got their $$ by someone paying for products/services. When you graduate and go into private practice, how will you let people know you’re giving out medical services (for pay, I assume)? You’ll advertise in some way — perhaps get free advertising by giving advice to a citizen’s meeting — and in that advertising you’ll have to do what Pfizer’s BlondeWoman did. You’ll make sure people know this service/info comes to them courtesy of TAHDAH! yourself.