RAPID CITY, SD – On my first day of medical school, the dean proclaimed that “everything we teach you over the next 4 years will be obsolete in 10,” or something like that—I wasn’t really listening. A rather scary notion that was, but he could not have been more wrong. In actuality, medical research is advancing so rapidly today that every bit of medical knowledge you possessed when you started reading this article’s headline was obsolete by the time you finished.
It’s making life rather difficult for clinicians like Dr. Sal O’Downe. “Any recommendation I give my patients,” he lamented, “is already outdated by the time I finish saying it. I’m constantly refreshing Twitter for updates right in front of my patients, but even that isn’t fast enough. And UpToDate is just useless; it may as well change its name to OutOfDate.”
The consequences are not limited to doctors’ offices. Harvard Medical School recently posted this on its website: “Unfortunately, it’s come to our attention that our professors have been feeding our students archaic information. Medicine is just moving too fast for us. So, after almost 238 years, we’ve made the difficult decision to quit the medical education business. Effective immediately, we’re switching our entire focus to studying things that move much more slowly: turtles. Perhaps snails too, or maybe molasses—we’ll let you know, eventually.”
It’s gotten so bad that the American Board of Medical Specialties (ABMS) has temporarily suspended all Board exams. “Every time we’re ready to publish a question, the correct answer changes,” pleaded ABMS spokeswoman Olive DeBuv. No need to worry, though—certification is now available for purchase on Amazon.
Take a look at how a nervous GI conference speaker futilely attempted to discuss colon cancer screening as a colleague relayed real-time updates to him via an earpiece: “A minute ago, the best screening tool was the colonoscopy; now, I’m told it’s fecal DNA testing…nope, it’s apparently CT colography…and um, wow, daily rectal exams are now the way to go! Haha, just kidding! Screening, it’s just been revealed, is actually worthless, and oh wait, screening’s back in, and everyone should have a colonoscopy before their 1st birthday. Never mind, that’d be a waste ‘cause we now encourage prophylactic colectomies for everybody. Oops, my bad, that recommendation was so 15 seconds ago. Gene editing is the latest trend—we simply delete the genes that code for colon cancer…and what the f-ck, now we’re back to daily rectal exams?! Oh, for the love of God, I quit! And for the record, I favor removal of colons ‘cause mine just sh-t my pants!”
Dismayed about the outdated guidance they keep giving patients, physicians are second-guessing their career choices. “If I’d wanted to make money giving people bad advice,” said one frustrated doctor, “I would’ve become a lawyer instead!”
