Professional Standards

As a physician I read with interest the complaints of the recent law school graduates about having to take the bar exam, which has been impacted by the virus situation (Alumni in the News email, July 21). It certainly sounds as though they weren’t confident to take the exam but they also went on to complain about having to finish law school online, losing money attributed to housing, etc. They don’t seem to realize that millions of high school and college students, to say nothing of enrollees in graduate programs including medical schools, experienced the same problems. 

I am pretty close to the Hopkins medical-education establishment and follow alumni affairs, and while the curriculum in most medical schools has been undergoing a lot of changes recently, I haven’t heard of any dropping licensing requirements for physicians nor do I believe any hospital or health system would hire a physician who could not pass state licensing requirements. Indeed, most require board certification, which requires even more exams. So why should attorneys not have to pass a minimum examination requirement? The complaint seems, frankly, childish.