Disclaimer: This post is from GomerBlog, a satirical site about healthcare.
NEW YORK CITY — Medical students and patients alike were surprised to find the lobby of University Hospital here swarming with executives from some of the world’s largest companies on Monday. The executives had been invited to come learn about the School of Medicine’s business model as part of the school’s “Partnership on Profits” program.
“What we’re really excited to learn about is the medical student workforce,” noted Fortune 500 executive Charles Smith. “It’s amazing that the school has cultivated a workforce of hundreds that will do absolutely anything and pay the university $60,000 per year. We’ve managed to avoid giving our employees benefits by keeping them all part-time — and maximally leveraged our unpaid intern utilization — but we hadn’t figured out how to get workers to pay us. That’s the next frontier of business optimization.”
The key — according to the Partnership on Profits program — is to focus on the valuable experience and education these “employees” are receiving. “You can’t put a price tag on workplace experience,” explained program director Sharon Hopkins. “Unless, of course, that price-tag is $60,000 payable to the School of Medicine by cash or check. Why should we be paying these people when we’re already giving them the intangibles they’ll need to advance their careers? That just doesn’t make any sense.”
In a seminar with administrators and medical students, the executives learned exactly how the system works. An important part is the arbitrary scoring system with which the students/workers are judged. Once they are focused on maximizing these “grades,” they will do literally anything and pay the school to do it. When the medical students on the panel were asked if they enjoyed paying $60,000 a year to work in the hospital, one responded, “Yes, sir. Of course, sir. Thank you, sir. Please tell my attending I told you that so I get honors.”
At press time, the executives were excited to bring back what they had learned to their respective companies. Some had even started talking with national banks about their student loan programs, hoping to find a way for workers to go into debt to pay for their jobs.
Last Updated June 15, 2020
Source: MedicalNewsToday.com
