This is only part of the speech given by the President of the AAMC during the 112th National Conference last year.
"If we wish to deepen rather than drain that reservoir of nascent virtue, we are going to have to do more to reconcile the values we actually teach our students and residents with the values we profess to teach them -- what my old Stony Brook colleagues Coulehan and Williams have called the tacit versus the explicit values of medicine. I urge you all to read their provocative article in last June's Academic Medicine entitled "Vanquishing Virtue: The Impact of Medical Education." It is but the latest in a long string of passionate pleas for us to address the gap -- arguably the growing gap -- between what kind of doctors we say we want our students to become, and what kind of doctors we actually teach them how to be. In our various courses and pronouncements on rounds, for example, we talk about the importance of caring, compassion, empathy, respect, and fidelity, and about what it means to be a good physician -- about the need to be trustworthy, honest, and committed primarily to patients' welfare. That's the visible, explicit curriculum.
"In the hidden, implicit curriculum that students actually experience in their day-to-day interactions, they typically encounter different values. Our learning environments tend to revere, in Coulehan and Williams' words, "objectivity, detachment, wariness, and distrust of emotions." And because those implicit lessons are endlessly repeated, and are imbedded in actions rather than just in words, they are much, much more powerful and enduring. The result is that technical skills come to be valued more highly than interactive skills. More important, our idealistic students who hear us say one thing and see us do another are often quick to sour on virtue, many opting instead for cynicism.
I suggest that all of you read the speech in its entirety and you will see the relevent point that Hoosier was trying to make in starting this thread.
http://www.aamc.org/newsroom/pressrel/2001/011104a.htm
If the president of the AAMC can acknowledge the cynicism that is being fostered to allopathic students, then I don't think that Hoosier was off base by bringing up the issue that many allopathic students are unhappy with medicine. He was just making an observation that was already brought up to the entire AAMC.
This is not to say that every DO student is extremely happy with their careers either but it is interesting that Dr. Cohen felt the need to address it in his speech to the conference. It kind of validates that this is a real problem and not just an argument among pre-meds or med students.
