> True, but as it turns out, most doctors are sons and daughters of rich folks
> (at least that's what sister tells me, who's doing her residency now).
Lets pretend that anecdata is useful and assume that it is generalizable to the entire population of med students. Do you think the prevalence of rich kids is alarming? Possibly an indication that something needs to change in the financing of healthcare or healthcare education?
ADDENDUM Feel free to ignore this: (obviously you are morally bound to respond to the above;)
The way you speak about being the sons and daughters of rich kids seems to indicate that you and your sister feel separate from that group. Did you come from an affluent family?
Yes, clearly it is a problem that only the rich are able to have the resources to get ahead. But this is a much bigger problem than who's able to become a doctor and who's not, it has to do (imo) with the greater issues of society, like new parents being unable to provide high quality preschool education, mom and dad still working when kids are teenagers and need attention and guidance, and so on. I'm a fan of quasi-socialistic, progressive-taxing to ensure everyone gets the resources.
I'm from a brown immigrant family. Brown/Asian immigrants seem to be exceptions everywhere, in that they're usually poor starting out and still persevere and make it through medical schools and whatever else. My family now is doing quite okay, but is probably still below the average residency student's family. The way it looks to me (anecdata), the average residency student's family has a household income of 1mil+. My family's household income is barely 200k, so make of that what you will.
I'd say that a prevalence of rich kids is alarming, and not from an equality perspective or anything. It's alarming because an advanced and specialized economy like ours is at its most efficient when people are doing the jobs they're best suited for. If I'm well-suited to be a DBA and I'm instead doing something I'm much less well-suited for (like sales) then it's a societal net-loss[1]. Unless we assume there's a reason that the people who are best-suited or at least well-suited to be doctors are disproportionately rich, then we're probably winding up with poor/middle-class folks who'd make excellent doctors doing some other job they're less good at.
[1] This is not and should not be read as an argument that DBAs > sales or anything to that effect.
ADDENDUM Feel free to ignore this: (obviously you are morally bound to respond to the above;)
The way you speak about being the sons and daughters of rich kids seems to indicate that you and your sister feel separate from that group. Did you come from an affluent family?