The current generation of young adults, commonly called “millennials”, is often criticized for being self-centered, “spoiled”, the product of “helicopter parents”, showing the signs of having grown up in a culture where “everyone was a winner”. On the other hand, studies also show them to be the most socially conscious, idealistic, and optimistic generation in a long time (despite the evidence that things are not going so well for them, and little reason to think they’ll improve soon). They, as a group, have become politically involved, shocking the established political order with their enthusiasm for the presidential candidacy of an old Jewish socialist from New York City via Vermont, making Sen. Sanders a viable contender
This generation includes most medical students, as well as most residents, so I get to see them a lot. I can say that there are many in this group who are committed, hard-working, idealistic and self-sacrificing. And there are a lot who are not. In short, they are people. Yes, there are those who, for whatever reasons in their personality or upbringing, are “all about me”, argue their grades, have no time for giving to others, seem to have no sense of the collective good, and sometimes make me wonder why they want to be doctors. But you know what? We had those people back in my generation. I was in college in the 1960s, and not pre-med, and there were pre-meds around who had the reputation as narrow, grade-grubbing, and not socially involved. There were also pre-meds who were very involved in the major struggles of the day, anti-war, civil rights, racism. I was in a post-baccalaureate premedical program in the early 1970s, when the Vietnam War, with its extension into Cambodia, was peaking. Many of my fellow students, going to night classes after working all day, could not be seen as privileged, but many, including veterans, were active in those movements. And many were not.
I was in medical school in the mid-1970s, and there were many who were all about themselves and their futures. And many whose futures turned out to be very distinguished and productive. There was also a lot of social involvement. Chicago had a number of medical schools, and students knew each other across schools, even sometimes roomed together. When a physician researcher at one school was discovered to be doing research that targeted poor black women, students there protested; when he planned to leave for a job at another school, students there made an issue of it. I was involved in some of these struggles, and some in medical school. When, at a forum of the whole school to discuss the impact of our 3-year curriculum, the Chairman of Surgery announced he thought our 3rd-year medical students were ill-prepared because he had heard some of them asking nurses for advice on skills such as starting an IV (“in my day, we would never have asked nurses for advice!”), I stood up and spoke on how we were glad to not be like that, that we wanted to be able to learn from anyone. Maybe not my smartest hour (the chair of another department tried to get my year-old grade in his clerkship changed), but I bring it up because there appeared to be generational differences then, as now. I am not an expert on generational trends (for this I recommend the outstanding book by Paul Taylor, “The Next America”[1]), but looking back I also remember senior faculty who were very supportive of progressive efforts; I think that then, as now, it is people who are different, not really generations.
Our current and recent medical students at KU created and continue to staff and work hard for the Jaydoc Student-run Free Clinic, which provides care for folks with little or no money or insurance in the evenings; succeeding classes, if not generations, have expanded the scope and impact of the clinic. Students frequently volunteer for, and self-fund, trips to provide care in poorer countries – and even sometimes in our own, for those left out of our non-system of health care. (These trips are generically called “mission trips” even when there is no explicit evangelical religious component; however, many are indeed organized by religious organizations, and personed by students, doctors and others motivated by their religious beliefs. I may not be a big fan of religious evangelism, but I am a big fan of people doing good work!) Many of our students are active in the community, in local as well as national programs. They regularly volunteer for the school-based health clinic at a local high school, named the Bulldoc for the school’s teams, the Bulldogs, by the high school’s students (post-milennials?). The clinic itself was created by a collaboration between the school, school district, community groups (particularly pastors), medical school faculty, and students – in particular one medical student, without whose efforts it would never have come to pass.
When I was young, and even in earlier generations, many students, like other people, worked for the interests of others as well as themselves. Many do so now. Others, it is sad (to me) to say, are indeed self-absorbed, and all about themselves. Like other people, like doctors – and nurses and accountants and steelworkers and retail clerks and unemployed people. We can only laud those whose work demonstrates the “better angels” of human nature, and hope that narrow, selfish behaviors will extinguish.
To those who are in medical school, I want to say “No, it is not about you. It is about the people for whom you will be caring. And let’s not forget what ‘caring’ means.” Sometimes I actually do. Maybe we should all say, or at least think, that more often.
[1]Taylor, P and the Pew Research Center, “The Next America: Boomers, Millennials, and the Looming Generational Showdown”, 2014.
