In Philly (where I presume the office manager resides…if even a burb), Temple (in general) has a more common rep for being where the dumb regional kids go to school. [Which, sadly, is sorta true.]

It’s nice to see this idea sort of inverted at the Dental School level, but it strikes me funny nonetheless.

But isn’t anyone else a little shocked the resumes are being circular-filed without even a casual perusal by someone in charge of hiring? Or is an office manager now the person who selects dentists for the office?

And no one sees the inherent discrimination in the office manager’s stereotyping of ALL Penn dentists coming from wealth and ALL Temple dentists “paid for it themselves”???

Just another form of classism…

P.S. While I was not a Dental School student, I did live in Philly for about 13 years, attended both Temple and Penn…and even taught at both Temple and other Philly Uni Drexel. I have a bit more experience to speak to this than many.

This conversation reminds me of an interview I heard with Lani Guenier probably 10 years ago. She was talking about how the SAT was a poor judge of who succeeded in college. Part of her evidence was based on a survey of Harvard alumns who were successful on Harvard’s terms: they were generous donors to Harvard. What were the two greatest predictors of this kind of success? According to Guenier (via Harvard), 1) working-class background and 2) poor grades freshman year. So by Harvard’s own research and definition of success, it should admit only people from working-class backgrounds who do poorly freshman year. (But that ain’t gonna happen!)

Sometimes assumptions about class are just about the opposite of what you’d expect. I think class intersects with a number of other factors, race, gender, urban/rural, etc. that determine a professional’s altruism (or lack thereof.)

Not excuses – it’s still our job to treat people decently.

Now that I’ve calmed down a bit, I also want to add to the last statement of my first comment that some of the most empathetic docs I’ve know have also been working-class folks. I just don’t think you can make advance judgment about empathy based on someone’s background.

The dentist interrupted my son and said, “Everything your mother says is spot on.” He told me he hated the Penn instructors, most of them were “arrogant assholes” who passed along that attitude to his patients, and noted that far too many Penn Dental grads only cared about money because they graduated owing about 300K. (He also said they graduated with far too little clinical experience. I said the high prices at the clinic had a lot to do with that.)

We discussed the politics of healthcare reform and he talked about how most dentists wouldn’t accept government insurance – in fact, a lot of them won’t accept any insurance at all, he said. He says he’d have to treat five times as many insurance patients in a day to make up the amount he’d make treating private, cash-paying patients.

When I asked, however, he did say if the government forgave student loans in exchange for them accepting public patients, it would make all the difference in the world.

On the other hand, when I used to run a program whose labor was 90% MA students from local area colleges, we definitely picked students from the cheaper, “lower ranked,” state schools over the private ones after years of having the private school kids show up and act like they were too good for the work we needed done or worse like they ran the place talking down to both staff and clients.

I really see it as a failure of training more than a universal.

Side note on elite institutions — Ron Takaki, from the elite institution I studied at, and a very unassuming person, has passed on.

http://www.asianweek.com/2009/05/27/remembering-ron-takaki/