There is a Stanford Professor of Management and Engineering, Robert I. Sutton, who has written a book called "The No Asshole Rule: Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One That Isn't".

So what does that have to do with Medical School?

After all, when you think about the place where doctors work -- often in hospitals -- it hardly seems like your typical workplace environment, right? Because your "typical" workplace has cubicles and offices and the like. Not too many of those in a hospital (although the administrators tend to have them; and, surprisingly, a few others).

Now, of course, physicians do often have "offices", so maybe that's the kind of wokplace we should think about.

Professor Sutton includes other adjectives which fit within the "asshole" paradigm: jerks and bullies. And how does Professor Sutton define these people? He describes them as people who leave others de-energized and demeaned. He also comments that the study of assholes is aided by the academic study on bullies and psychological abuse. He also describes it as something that more powerful people do to folks with less power.

He refers to the many studies done in England and the U.S., to survey people who feel they work with psychological abusers. And the number one occupation who complained? Nurses.

Who do you think they were being abused by? Well, patients, for one. But, of course, primarily, it would seem, by physicians.

This was quickly followed by the fact that it's not only nurses who get abused -- but also surgical residents and medical students. And that this sets up a chain of events -- those who are abused take the cue from their higher-ups, and when they move up, perpetuate the psychological abuse.

It was this kind of experience that anthropologist Melvin Konner writes about in his book "Becoming a Doctor: A Journey of Initiation in Medical School" and resulted in his not continuing his medical education.

The movie "The Doctor" (1991), with William Hurt, also shows an arrogant surgeon as he has his come-to when he find himself at the other end of the medical system.

A more cynical view on the experience of medical school is the classic fiction book (and some say that it is thinly veiled fiction) by Samuel Shem, "House of God". If you are considering medical school, these two books, Shem's and Konner's, are must reads.

Further, the attitude is further exemplified in the movie "Malice" with Alec Baldwin, with one of the great movie speeches (next to the far better known "Greed is good" speech of corporate raider Gordon Gecko in "Wall Street"):

"I have an MD from Harvard, I am board-certified in cardiothoracic medicine and trauma surgery, I have been awarded citations from seven different medical boards in New England, and I am never, ever sick at sea. So I ask you: when someone goes into that chapel and they fall on their knees and they pray to God that their wife doesn't miscarry or that their daughter doesn't bleed to death or that their mother doesn't suffer acute neural trauma from post-operative shock, who do you think they're praying to? Now, go ahead and read your Bible, and go to your church, and, with any luck, you might win the annual raffle, but if you're looking for God, he was in operating room number two on November 17, and he doesn't like to be second-guessed. You ask me if I have a god complex. Let me tell you something: I am God."

One has to wonder if parents, rather than talking about "My son the doctor" would really feel as happy if they said "My son the asshole."

Does it mean that you can't come out of medical school as a genuinely nice, concerned, caring person. Perhaps. But this is something you probably aren't being told as you aspire (or your child aspires) to become an M.D.