Higher Education is being erased. Does it matter?

[limbicnuminousity]

8. Profiteering corrupts higher ed.

Anecdote 1. I held a research position in a plastic surgery department which made it necessary to attend departmental meetings with cosmetic surgeons. In one of the more striking meetings, a few younger surgeons commented on the fact that opiod prescriptions are verboten with the uni/hospital administration. The other surgeons shrugged. One laughingly commented on the possibility of medical marijuana being used as a treatment for surgical pain and was greeted by derisive laughter from the rest of the surgeons. They know that patients often receive inadequate treatment for pain management and they basically don't care. It's not their problem. They clock in at a median salary of $600k/year. Why should they care if some middle income earner suffers needless pain, right?

Anecdote 2. My research focused on the genetic basis for certain birth defects, early-onset breast cancer, and treatment-resistant MS. It wasn't earthshaking work but it was solid and identified several viable candidates for therapeutic intervention. The department chair's main criticism was that we needed to make commercial products. Not therapies or cures or diagnostic testing. Products. Barring products, his next best idea was creating an online lecture series for streaming on youtube. Maybe I could talk about DNA in the videos, he suggested. The department chair, for what it's worth, is a recipient of the presidential Medal of Science.

Academic research at institutes of higher learning, particularly at medical universities, is broken. Corporate interests corrupt the process.