AIMING AT MEDICINE?

Though first a doctor who treated patients, the author became a professor, questioning facts (researching), exciting students (teaching), borrowing ideas (from the breadth of science, statistics, technology, engineering and medicine), and challenging 'how it all works'. Though beginning gently, the question in the book eventually leads fiercely into how research, teaching, practice and service really occur, and to ferocious challenges both inside academia and out in society.

It is hoped that this double-ferocity will be useful: to students wondering about their futures; to physician and scientist parents looking at the possibility of their children following them; to all parents and grandparents worrying about the careers of all offspring; to anyone interested in the processes of discovery, teaching, and service; and for everyone, concerned about the wider implications for education and for society.

Contents:

• You (Our Students) Must be Centre Stage:
  • You (Our Students) Must be Centre Stage
• How It Happened to Me (A Road Less Travelled):
  • A Passion for Science and Medicine
  • First Discovery: A Very Small Finding
  • First Teaching: The Teaching/Research Nexus
  • First Practice: The Teaching/Research/Practice Triad
• Research Wrinkles:
  • 'Just Sheer Dumb Luck' (Professor Mcgonagall, Hogwarts)
  • Borrowed, Gifted, Shared, Even Invented, (But Not Stolen!)
  • Three Heresies and Thrice a Heretic!
  • Guessing Human Pasts, 'Guestimating' Human Futures
  • Gold Standards, Accepted Wisdoms, Best Practices: Are They Crippling Straightjackets?
  • 'O-Metrics': Finding What is Hidden!
  • International Links: Especially China!
• Challenging Inside the Ivory Tower:
  • Students Effecting Change; Is It Possible?
  • Professors Effecting Change; It is Impossible!
  • Deans Effecting Change; The Poisoned
  • The Conscience of the University!
  • Military Interludes!
• Challenging Beyond the Drawbridge:
  • Science Advice: From Axes and Arrows to Pandemics and 'Cyber-Demics'
  • Do We Have a Science/Technology/Medicine Problem?
  • Halfway Through the Drawbridge: Climbing Up, Sliding Down
  • Are Teaching and Research Careers Now Moribund?
  • The World Sphere: Should We be Worried?

Readership: High school students, undergraduate students, medical students, research students, teachers and educators, student mentors, parents, and all interested in the careers of the young.

Key Features:

• This book questions those many young people thinking of careers in medicine, health and medical science. Young people, girls as well as boys, are often worried that they may not be good enough, or clever enough
• Yet young people have worked so diligently, getting good grades in high schools, doing well as undergraduates, memorizing facts as medical students, working hard and long as young doctors, and then into practice (and for many, also, teaching and research)
• It all seems so obvious, and to some, so off-putting. But it's really so much more!
• In this book are my answers to the question; they are: For you, students of all ages; For your parents (especially doctor and science parents - they wonder: should you follow them?); For your grandparents (forever proud of you, their grandchildren, whatever you come to do!); For all your other supporters, interested in where you are going; For anyone else, wondering about the realities of learning, discovery, practice and service; For everyone, worried about the ways that medicine and medical education are changing
• Parents (especially mothers) are forever proud of their sons (and their daughters): "My child, the doctor!" Is this part of the way?; Acredita No Veio: Listen to the Old Man: Edson Arantes do Nascimento (Pelé)