This new program may soon be a real option for students who complete four years of undergraduate work, and are then able to earn qualifying scores on the MCAT exam. In the past, this test traditionally determined if a candidate was eligible to enter an accredited medical school in the United States, but it may now be used to qualify a candidate for this alternative certification.
"Basically," stated ASMA spokesperson John S. Hopkins, "medical students are already overwhelmed by the sheer amount of information they must process and memorize, and we thought that their time could be better spent physically interacting with patients, and practicing surgical techniques on the cadavers."
"Since almost any medical diagnosis and treatment can be found on Google if you input the right set of symptoms, we just didn't see a need to send our doctors to the library for four years when they could be learning how to cut people open and sew them back up again instead."
Medical resident Lucille Carver is one of a handful of doctors participating in a pilot "Googling" program at Tufts University School of Medicine in Massachusetts. "I've got a web-enabled Motorola 'Crazer' phone with me at all times, so getting the information I need is no problem, unless I don't have reception for some reason," claims Carver.
"If that happens, I just tell patients I have to 'consult with a colleague,' and then I just go down to my office and Google the information there. After that, I usually just stroll back to the operating room, and then act like I figured it out on my own."
"With the ever-expanding body of medical knowledge we have today, it would be impossible for even the most accomplished physician to keep up with all of it," added Hopkins. "We would rather have our doctors out there concentrating on the things that really matter, like locating that missing retractor before they close their patient back up and send them on their way."
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