Medical Student Abuse

To the Editor.— The COMMENTARY entitled Medical Student Abuse by Rosenberg and Silver 1 places great reliance on 38 unsolicited comments from physicians who felt they were abused as medical students. This totally biased sample is as nonrepresentative as the questionnaire sent to medical students, all of whom are insecure. Unfortunately, there was no survey of physicians who did not respond spontaneously, who would be the most meaningful group that could be questioned. On the other hand, medical students are probably an inappropriate group to question, since all students feel themselves abused and put upon. The comment that medical students are not children but are vulnerable in a parallel way (to children) is specious and implies that the authors actually consider medical students to be children. Perhaps this is indeed the case, since the majority of medical students come from affluent families, have been raised according to the dogma of Dr