Last week, I realized that we do seem to live in the last days. A recent news article and a recent medical conference have confirmed this in my mind. First, the WorldMagBlog, notes an article from the Washington Post. The article describes a Nashville school that has stopped posting the list of Honor Roll acheivers so as not to offend those who didn't make the honor roll. Amazing!
Second, while attending the Advanced Trauma Life Support Instructor Course in Norfolk, Virginian I learned that even the American College of Surgeons (ACS -which runs the course) has succombed to political correctness.
The Instructor Course is designed to help participants become qualified instructors. Not only did the material go over how to present lectures and facilitate "skills stations", it also discussed how to evaluate students taking the course. In the past, students either passed or failed. But in today's course, students either pass or "remediate".
I was shocked. Surgeons are not known to be "touchy-feely". They are typically blunt, sometimes arrogant, but always results oriented people. This is a good thing. If you need to be cut upon, you want somebody who is confident and result oriented. But now, the professional group for surgeons - the ACS - has gone the way of the world. Instead of failing someone, they "remediate" someone.
This is dangerous. ATLS is a very straight forward, systematic approach to treat a critically injured person. It sets priorities and demands adherence to this. If someone goes out of order and forgets to focus on priorities, one, two, and three (or ABC in ATLS parlance), the patient will most likely die. In ATLS, you either know it or you don't. Why the ACS is concerned about "failing" someone is beyond me.
As I reflected on these two incidences of political correctness, I realized that it seems to be a desire to avoid discipline. Hebrews 12 talks about the fact that discipline is not pleasant at the time, but yields a harvest of righteousness. Although Hebrews 12 is talking about personal righteousness, I believe the principle is the same. Discipline in academics is warranted. It is painful to fail (or not make the Honor Roll), but if the student applies himself in the next task, the disappointment of failure produces success. It produces a harvest.
As Christians, we need to point out these types of errors and work against political correctness. Let's give honor to Honor Students, and let's fail those who are not up to the task. In this discipline, maybe we will see a harvest of righteousness for the effort.
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