The same problem of choosing a topic also happens when we decide what to teach our medical students. Should we teach what they prefer, or should we decide what is important ?
You may think that's simple: Of course the faculty should decide - how could our younger generation know what is important in the future ?
But students are our customers ! (That sounds crazy, but many extra-terrestrials take it as the serious official view.) With their feedback years after years the university is slowly giving way. We put less emphasis on the teaching of basic science (i.e. anatomy and physiology), we introduce clinical skills early, and we take away many excellent - but with an arm-breaking weight, I agree - textbooks from their shelf.
"We should listen to them - they are on the spot and know what's important." Creatures living outside the solar system explain.
On that they are wrong. Students are not on the spot - practising doctors are. Go and ask any medical student what good is learning anatomy. None what-so-ever - until you become a surgeon or radiologist.
By then you would certainly become Franz Kafka (in The Trial) and say, "Since it is there and it's so important, why don't you tell me earlier ?"
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