Category Archives: Education
On the Practice of Medicine
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 13th May 2021As student, trainee, educator, scientist, practitioner, and occasionally as a patient I have observed medicine as an insider for close to two thirds of a century. While the power of medical technology has grown exponentially over this span, the general principles of medical practice remain the same. My subject is the interplay between these two…
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On Equality
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 4th August 2020We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal… This self evident truth is obviously not self evident. Thomas Jefferson undoubtedly knew such to be the case. He meant that we all should be equal before the law and that the laws should be designed without bias or special benefit not thought…
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Everybody Should Get the Gold
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 21st June 2020Are you lost daddy? I asked tenderly.Shut up he explained. Ring Lardner Un pour tous, tous pour un is the motto of Duma père’s The Three Musketeers. Today it has been modified to All for all from some, the second ‘all’ includes only enlightened thinkers. Consider the litany of wide-ranging demands from black students at the University…
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Does a Physician Need to Attend College?
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 1st September 2019There have been a spate of articles about the value of a college education. Most conclude that its value resides solely in a piece of paper that gets its owner a higher paying job. They go on to declare that most jobs really gain nothing from a college education. All of them allow that a…
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From Tolerance to Equality – Book Review
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 12th June 2019Subtitled How Elites Brought America to Same-Sex Marriage, this book by Darel E Paul examines the phenomenon of same sex marriage, and a lot more. Paul is Professor of Political Science at Williams College – my alma mater and that of my two kids; accordingly I know a lot about its collective attitude. For him…
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We’re Number One
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 22nd March 2015You may have heard that Texas leads the US in new employment. Well, here’s one reason. The University of Texas at Austin is the state’s flagship institution of higher learning. It takes a lot of administrative support to keep such a big university turning out scholars in Architecture to Writing and everything in between. There…
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Student Loans
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 30th September 2012The only segment of our economy that had experienced the same inflation as medical care is higher education. While there may be many causes for this expansion of cost the biggest is doubtless the easy availability of student loans. The federal government has recently assumed full responsibility for the vast majority of these instruments. Until now it…
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Res Ipsa Loquitur
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 28th September 2012But if you’d like to read more about this observation, ie SAT reading scores are at a decades long low, go here.
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The Wall Street Journal and American History
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 15th June 2011The Wall Street Journal today published Students Stumble Again on the Basics of History. In it they present the familiar lament that many American students are deficient in the basics of American history. The following picture was used to illustrate how little our students know about the Declaration of Independence. All is not lost, however,…
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A Liberal Education
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 22nd November 2010Nobody can teach you nothing. You got to learn for yourself – Willie Mays Gregory A Petsko, the Gyula and Katica Tauber Professor of Biochemistry and Chemistry and chair of biochemistry at Brandeis University, has written an open, angry, and hostile letter to George M. Philip, the president of the State University of New York at Albany…
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About Neil Kurtzman
Neil A Kurtzman MD is the Grover E Murray Professor Emeritus and University Distinguished Professor Emeritus, Department of Internal Medicine at Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center in Lubbock. He has combined careers in clinical medicine, education, basic research, and administration for more than 30 years.› Read the biography
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