Last week, the "real-life Doogie Howser" made headlines again. By joining the Medical College of Georgia faculty at age 25, Balamurali K. Ambati has become the youngest doctor in the annals of "modern medicine" to hold a medical professorship. He's already in the Guinness Book of World Records for becoming the youngest physician, graduating from medical school at the ripe old age of 17.
Except for being an India native and 6 feet tall by the time he was 14, Ambati is the mirror image of the scrawny pale kid we all grew to love, rerun by mid-morning rerun. But Ambati's premature entry into the medical field is anything but laughable sitcom material. It sets a disturbing precedent that rewards "record-setting" in the medical field and raises questions about the validity of institutionalized medical training and tradition in the United States.
Physician licensure and training are central components in establishing the credibility of doctors in our culture. The system of training doctors has become so "prescribed" and reputable in America, that the majority of patients naturally assume a standard of expertise and maturity in their doctors.
Strangely enough, those patients go largely unmentioned by Ambati, who accepted the job at Medical College of Georgia because it "really put together the best package" for him to "make a go of it in an academic research career."
How'd he do it without the commercial breaks? Ambati completed two years of schooling for every academic year in his New York childhood. After reading about an Israeli student who graduated from medical school at 18, he set his sights on a medical career, being accepted to Mount Sinai School of Medicine at 14.
"I realized that I had a chance to beat that record, so that's how it became a goal," Ambati said. That's an acceptable statement for a sprinter to make, but not a doctor.
Why does our society place value on getting there faster and doing it first? The sheer curriculum length of American medical schools is indicative of the maturity and advanced level of knowledge and life experience doctors are expected to have attained by the end of their schooling. The timeline seems to prove that "skipping steps" isn't rewarded in the medical profession.
Au contraire. According to The Associated Press, Ambati did not even reveal his age to Georgia recruiters "until well into the recruiting process." Not only does this seem sneaky and dishonest, it points to a troubling disconnect in Ambati's logic for becoming a physician and medical professor. On one hand, his comments about his youth drip with the braggadocio of a gold-medal track star. On the other, Ambati realized that achieving his goal to beat out the 18-year-old Israeli was somehow subversive to the medical institution, and chose initially to conceal his age.
Let me make it clear that I am not criticizing Ambati's skills as a clinical physician, research ophthalmologist or medical professor. I do not doubt his ingenuity or intellect. Where I do fault him is in the immaturity of his goals and his myopic focus on breaking records and bettering his own career. His reasons for subverting the traditional timeline of American medical education and practice are purely self-indulgent.
Medical schools are designed to weed out crooks, quacks and anyone who wants to practice medicine for the wrong reasons. American medicine purports to be as much about principle as it is about precocity. Medicine is a time-intensive art, not a race. We should be wary of those who cross the finish line first.
Katie Petersen is an English and biology junior. Reach her at Katie.Petersen@asu.edu.
