Class

Another sobering truth is medical education also conforms to the Baumol's curse.

Think. To do a bedside teaching, it takes a small group of students, a teacher, some patients, and some fixed unit of time together. The supply of good teacher is limited, and it helps little if we increase the size of the group. Good teaching is, after all, a kind of handicraft, and productivity improvement is limited by the almost fixed human cost.

For the same argument, I am always against the idea of teaching grand rounds of 30 or 40 people. What good could it do besides fulfilling the grandiose ego of the one who leads the round ? If the material of discussion is meaningful to medical students, it would certainly be dead boring for trainees. On the other hand, the two specialists who try to have a slightly sophisticated dialog are probably Immanuel Kant and Georg Hegel of medicine to most of the students.

PS. Of course the worst scenario is the discussion of administrative matters in the round. How many of us understand the language on Pluto ?