Medical Student Abuse

Abstract

IN A Jan 15, 1982, COMMENTARY inThe Journal of the American Medical Association, Silver¹remarked on the unfortunate transformation that took place in some medical students. These students, while eager and enthusiastic at the time of admission to medical school, became cynical, frightened, depressed, or frustrated men and women after they had been in medical school for a while. He speculated that the changes that occurred could, to a substantial degree, be the result of medical student abuse. He wondered how we might deal with medical student abuse. How should this problem be brought to the attention of the faculty? Would the faculty acknowledge or deny the possibility of abuse? Would they minimize the changes in the students by attributing them to a variety of other causes? Would some faculty members declare that it was inevitable for medical students to feel as they did? Was the abuse, when it