Shelley's article effectively questions the insidious "students as customers" mentality which has become so endemic to higher education; however, his analogy of "students as patients" is equally problematic, as it: 1) fails to address key issues in current medical practices, wherein "the business of medicine" (i.e. drug sales/minimal treatments to maximize HMO profits, etc.) has failed the public to such a great extent that physician-caused death (due to adverse drug reactions, prescription errors, biased drug testing, malpractice, etc) is now the at least the third primary cause of death in the United States (
http://www.mercola.com/2000/jul/30/doctors_death.htm.); and 2) Shelley's analogy "Students as patients" implies an initial "unhealthy" state of students who must seek "treatment"...
Shelley bases his analogy on the stereotypes of "good" doctors who "have good bedside manners and listen carefully to what their patients say... [and] prescribe [helfpful] medicine..." Unfortunately, such stereotypes are moving further and further from actuality, as much in current medicine is even more contorted and flawed than the "students as customer" model.
Witness the string of drug fiascos, of which Vioxx is the latest (and Statin drugs may well be next) in a series-- due to the unhealthful and arguably immoral relationship between drug companies and private drug testing organizations--now that funds for objective federal testing have been cut, and drug companies pay private testing organizations to produce biased results, and only submit selected test results to the medical journals, such that the journals publish skewed information which becomes the "standard of care" which doctors follow--not to mention the indirect kickbacks and perks which doctors receive from drug companies for prescribing certain medications (OVERDOSED AMERICA, by Harvard Professor John Abramson ISBN: 0060568526 ).
But above and beyond criticism of the unfortunately unrealistic stereotype of "good doctors, " lies the more fundamental problem of analogizing "patients" (who by definition are unhealty and/or diseased and seeking treatment) with "students" (note that it cannot be argued that Shelley only refers to patients who are seeking a check-up which confirms their current good health, as this would imply that no treatment is necessary--and, vis-a-vis students, no education would be necessary...)
Certainly, students have something to gain in their educational pursuits--but this something is NOT a return to a default state of good health; nor is it recovery from an illness or injury or genetically-transmitted diseased state. Ideally, what is gained in education is transcendence to a new level of awareness and ability. And ideally this transcendence leads to a better life for the educated person and for those in the surrounding society.
A primary working definition of good health is "the absence of illness." While it might be said that education leads to an absence of misperceptions, in general education is additive. Education moves an individual through stages of development--none of which are fundamentally unhealthy--like those of the patient who goes to seek treatment from a doctor and hopes to move toward recovery.
In the final analysis concerning the "Courses Of Treatment" essay, while it is good to see any active effort and vocalization/verbage concerning the extreme problems with the "students as customers" modality (especially if that verbage comes from an administrator), the concept of "student as patient" is equally troubling. Ultimately, true insight into both concerns, medical and educational, lies in a macroscopic perspective--a viewing of both the educational and medical arenas as being "infected" by paradigm shifts to business models which are utterly erroneous in both fields.
As a society, we must wonder about the future of our civilization when the goal of medical treatment is to sell drugs, and the goal of education is to increase enrollment and sell degrees; when doctors are frequently killing patients and educational institutions seek primarily their own financial success; where course sequences are prescribed by corporations and college admissions/hiring practices are decided by race...
The sad fact is that the original model of the university, like the original model of the physician, seems to be increasingly disenfranchised from modern society. The solution is not to bend these models in absurd configurations to conform to a decline in civilization--the solution is to objectively reexamine fundamental societal trends and correct their errant and aberant directions before it is too late.
Unlike the hoardes which over-ran Greece and Rome, the modern day hoardes will not be unruly savages, but rather the greedy graduates of educational institutions, well-versed in corporate coursework and ethos, commercializing every aspect of society, with financial gain as the sole quest, until our very last breaths.
"Things which matter most must never be at the mercy of things which matter least" (Goethe). Physican, heal thyself.
