Certain groups want to have their cake and eat it too.
Listing so called "bad physicians" not enough. The Public Citizen is working to increase the investigation of physicians. It desires better quality physicians, as we all do, but it blasts away indiscriminately. Now it has targeted the AAMC Graduation Questionnaire. I have followed this over the years and the items placed on the GQ have become goals that have increased medical education efforts in a number of key areas such as doctor-patient communication, care of the underserved, cultural understanding, etc.
Responsible public citizens will act as responsible doctors, to first do no harm. There is plenty for medical education to work on without taking away tools that do help.
AAMC responds to Public Citizen's complaints about graduation survey:
In a letter last week to the Department of Health and Human Services'
Office for Human Research Protection, Public Citizen, a consumer
advocacy organization, called for a federal investigation into the
AAMC's Graduation Questionnaire (GQ) and the medical schools that
administer the survey. Public Citizen charges that the AAMC and the
nation's medical schools are violating ethical standards and federal law
by coercing students to participate in the GQ and not informing them
that their responses may be included in published research.
AAMC President Jordan J. Cohen, M.D., issued the following statement in
response to these allegations:
"Public Citizen's recent correspondence on the AAMC Graduation
Questionnaire exhibits a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature and
purpose of this survey. Since 1978, U.S. medical schools have used the
GQ to evaluate their education programs. The detailed feedback provided
by students each year has proved invaluable in maintaining this
country's superior system of medical education. Medical schools
encourage full participation by their students in order for the GQ to
serve as an effective quality improvement tool. Student answers are kept
strictly confidential. Identifiable data are released only to the
student's own school and only with the student's express permission.
Identifiable data are never released to other schools or to third
parties.
Over the years, the AAMC and other parties have utilized pooled,
de-identified data from the GQ to answer important questions about the
nature of American medical education in general. In every case, the data
provided to researchers are aggregated and confidential. In keeping with
recent trends in social science research, the AAMC decided several
months ago to take the added precaution of submitting the GQ for review
by an institutional review board (IRB)."
Information: Go to
http://www.aamc.org/data/gq/start.htm