Originally posted 01.26.2005

Kevin warned me that it might be difficult to keep Dr. M on track. He’s from the hands-on school of everything and has little time for the esoterica of academics and a penchant for illustrated examples. The focus of the interview was, “what do you think of the recent acceptance of the adoption of maintenance of certification practices as set forth in agreement by the American Board of Medical Specialties?”

But this is what happened:

Dr. M: We spend time worrying about, for example, ventilator settings, which if you’re in a small hospital in the country, you know the ventilator settings cause you have to run them. In the big hospitals, general surgeons can’t get credentialed to run ventilators in the ICU. Shoot. You see what I’m saying?

M.S.: Yeah, yeah I do.

Dr. M.: So here we come with some critical care docs at the university writing all these stupid questions on ventilators when half of the surgeons can’t even turn one on.

M.S.: Okay, but…

Dr. M.: They run, now you’re beginning to get where I’m going.

M.S.; Yeah, I get where you’re going, but…

Dr. M: It’s unbelievable.

M.S.: But I am, um…

Dr. M.: Now here’s the other thing. This is what always blew my mind. You want them to learn. You don’t care about the testing part, or at least I don’t. For example, there’s a guy, you’ve heard of Mose Speakers.

M.S.: Who?

Dr. M: Mose Speakers.

M.S.: Oh right, sure. [I don’t know who he’s talking about. I thought he said “Bose speakers.”]

Dr. M: He is one of the top teachers at MIT. Every one of his tests are open book.

M.S.: Um-hm.

Dr. M.: Now. When I get up to lecture to the docs, what would be, would get you an A and raise your IQ, would be multiple choice questions, uh, Einstein’s theory is, if I look down there and E=MC2. Now, the fact that you know that, does that mean anything?

M.S.: No.

Dr. M.: It sure doesn’t, because nobody knows what it means. But you’d get an A on the test! And what happens in medical school, especially with the technical guys, the surgical group, is we’re, we are trained to death between the ears. How does that correlate with how you do it?

M.S.: Right.

Dr. M.: And I’m here to tell you, most of the academic centers don’t do the technical work as well as the cognitive work, and between you and I, if you’re fixing my truck, you can tell me all the theories you want, but I want you to fix my truck.