If medicine were taught like architecture...
As someone who spent a long, long time in school (and mostly loved it) this wry, funny note from Dr Garry Stevens highlights some of my own questions about modern academia:
"If medicine was taught like architecture, first-year med students would spend most of the year describing exciting ideas about completely hypothetical surgical techniques to their tutors. Along the way they would reluctantly attend lectures about the human body and how to take someone's blood pressure. All this would be conveyed through slides. No-one would see a real body or apply a sphygmomanometer. One of the most popular subjects would be medical history. Aristotle's four humours would be studied at length. Students would write long essays about the significance of Roman medicine. They would discuss the enduring importance of Galen, probably throwing in some illustrations from one of the Renaissance editions of his works. One assignment would probably ask them to make a model of the human anatomy as Galen understood it. High grades would be awarded to the best models. A few of the students would fall in love with Galen's aesthetics, and seek to promote his ideas for the rest of their academic and professional lives."
Exaggerated, but perhaps with just enough truth to bite?
One of my favourite professors gently lamented that—unlike law or medicine—due to the emphasis on originality, he had no real way to pass on the great body of architectural knowledge as a codified whole. Some hold the view that this is quite a good thing, but I consider architecture both art and science, and have wondered if too much stress on creativity and originality can be just as pathological as the lack of it?
I would be interested in hearing your views!
"If medicine was taught like architecture, first-year med students would spend most of the year describing exciting ideas about completely hypothetical surgical techniques to their tutors. Along the way they would reluctantly attend lectures about the human body and how to take someone's blood pressure. All this would be conveyed through slides. No-one would see a real body or apply a sphygmomanometer. One of the most popular subjects would be medical history. Aristotle's four humours would be studied at length. Students would write long essays about the significance of Roman medicine. They would discuss the enduring importance of Galen, probably throwing in some illustrations from one of the Renaissance editions of his works. One assignment would probably ask them to make a model of the human anatomy as Galen understood it. High grades would be awarded to the best models. A few of the students would fall in love with Galen's aesthetics, and seek to promote his ideas for the rest of their academic and professional lives."
Exaggerated, but perhaps with just enough truth to bite?
One of my favourite professors gently lamented that—unlike law or medicine—due to the emphasis on originality, he had no real way to pass on the great body of architectural knowledge as a codified whole. Some hold the view that this is quite a good thing, but I consider architecture both art and science, and have wondered if too much stress on creativity and originality can be just as pathological as the lack of it?
I would be interested in hearing your views!
Tags: architecture, school
Comment
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Comment by RAFAEL A. RODRIGUEZ on July 1, 2009 at 7:22am - true, sad but true
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Comment by chris on May 29, 2009 at 9:57pm - word
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Comment by edv on May 24, 2009 at 9:04pm - This has made me laugh. I just stumbled on this blog while doing research for an assignment. My last assignment "Create a Power Point presentation for the design history period selected addressing the three points above." and my construction assignment was to constuct a model for the frame work of the a house. I found myself going to war with balsa wood and pva glue. We had a exam on things such as bracing and so forth and Despite the fact that I aced that exam, the irony that the highest mark will go to the best model. I find myself reluctant to go to lectures where they teach you to think "outside the box." class101 'how to be creative for dummies'. I rolled my eyes at fellow student who told me "it's important." I think creativity and being original is not something that can not be taught. When I look at structures and buildings in magazines that look amazing or virtually impossible, as if it defies gravity or laws of physics. The architect has used engineering to make it possible. True originallity comes from someone who naturally thinks outside the box. But has the ability to apply it. Architecture is an Art and Science, but more science. If Vangogh didn't know how to put paint on the canvas, well that would be a pity.
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Comment by Robin Gosse on May 24, 2009 at 5:26pm -
What a wonderful perspective! I had studied Civil Engineering Technology through the college path here in Newfoundland, Canada... and their process was completely backward. A large part of the problems was that older instructors who teach the way they were taught, for better or for worst.
We were told to keep our nose down, do not ask questions, and leave creativity outside the classroom. We were taught formulas and routines and expressly told NOT to deviate from them. I felt rather stifled.
I pray that the Memorial University of Newfoundland (www.MUN.ca) instructors treat me differently when I attend in September, but only time will tell.
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Comment by Nold Egenter on May 15, 2009 at 8:35am - LOUD CRY: Elizabeth! Have YOU REALLY WRITTEN THAT? I rubbed my eyes!!!!! This comparison is for a log time in my brain. Many starts in writing it, but never finished really. Now I find it! Phantastic. And really well written. Compliments. More on this later. Soon!
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Comment by Michael McKenzie on April 22, 2009 at 5:01pm - In earlier comments, I did not mean to disparage the multitudes of individual architects whose work demonstrates an intimate caring and sensitivity to Human need. Elizabeth and Inigo are great examples here... and among those many who rise above the ponderous, stuffy malaise of architectural academia Dr. Stevens speaks to and the habit of its graduate workman whose weighty education more often builds temples to its own glory than solutions for everyman, that I complain about.
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Comment by Tom F on April 21, 2009 at 10:40am - Currently a student of architecture this post makes me smile, especially about the significance of Roman medicine
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Comment by Iñigo Ortiz Monasterio on April 21, 2009 at 6:36am -
Dear Michael:
There have always been architects dedicated to serve the less fortunate, the problem is that their work is not published in journals, so it's very difficult to know who they are. There are elite Doctors , like are elite architects , and in both cases are the most famous, but are not always the best.
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Comment by Michael McKenzie on April 20, 2009 at 5:00pm
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Well...I would agree with Dr. Stevens and admire his insight as he makes the point in an interesting way that architecture is detached from the tactile Human response and need.
He might also have very simply said...that architecture is an elitist self regulated enterprise whose knowledge is shared with the few, unattainable by the many and completely irrelevant to the masses. And to that I would also agree.
Medicine as analogy is also deliberate as a way to demonstrate that while medicine has human empowerment as its only objective, architecture speaks of human empowerment but in its pathological relationship with itself, and in its pandering relationship with the rich and powerful, it misses the 'human target' by a wide margin, consistently.
So, exaggerated...no...rather an incisive bite at the truth. (And now I will go gather my armour to shield from the wrath of architects :)
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Comment by se_cris on April 20, 2009 at 12:56pm -
:) nice.
actually l do myself many times a comparition between architects and doctors, especially when l need to compare the clients with patients :D
each time when clients come to ask for a project we must know what need they have to get satisfied as what desease we have to heal... and for a good results is needed a good collaboration from both sides! that is even more interesting! the client/patient needs to imply in the (healing) process, his/her creativity being as much as important as ours. otherway the "natural" gets far away and all become more chemical/plastic/artificial...whatever...
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