I was at an interview for medical school a few weeks ago, and was asked the question:
What do you think is the greatest problem facing healthcare today?
In the following paragraphs I outline the gist of my response, and some embellishments on the topic.
While I was in college, I can remember attending a lecture by the former United States Surgeon General Dr. C. Everett Koop. While Dr. Koop is best known for his monumental work in enhancing public awareness about the dangers of cigarette smoking (indeed, he is the one responsible for the warning labels prominently displayed on all packs of smokes), he actually spent most of his career pioneering the field of pediatric surgery at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. He is a most distinguished graduate of Dartmouth College (class of 1937), and, more interestingly for the non-Dartmouth readers, he was interviewed on the Ali-G show, so clearly he merits profound respect.
At the time of this lecture, Dr. Koop was almost 90 years old. I was expecting to hear a speech from a elderly man whose wisdom would be sadly muffled by his frailty. It turned out that he still spoke with a loud and penetrating voice … (Read the rest of this article »)