Convicts are doctors, too

Thinking about thinking

Juniata graduate, Jim Kalinski ‘03 was recently expelled from John Hopkins Medical School when it was revealed that Kalinski held a record of aggravated assault and armed robbery. Kalinski created a fake identity, which he used to conceal his past, after his release on parole in April 1999. His falsified records were only noticed when Kalinski applied for a grant to continue his medical studies at John Hopkins.
The incident raises many ethical concerns for the medical community as well as safety concerns at Juniata. Professors at Juniata were shocked to hear about Kalinski’s past. One professor, who wished to remain anonymous, said, “Jim was a model student, polite, helpful, and involved in student life. He graduated at the top of his class.”
With meager legal precedent for the expulsion, John Hopkins has come under fire from human rights groups. They claim that Kalinski was wrongfully expelled; they say that he is not being judged on the basis of present behavior or performance, but because of the stigma attached to ex-convicts.
On the contrary, the National Medical Association (NMA), in an official statement claims, “The removal of Kalinski will uphold the trust which the public places in the hands of medical practitioners.”
Kalinski’s case, though entirely fictionalized, has an alarming resemblance to the actual case of Karl Helge Hampus Svensson. Svensson was recently expelled from The Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden where he was studying medicine.
According to the New York Times, it was discovered last fall that, “Mr. Svensson had been a Nazi sympathizer who was paroled from a maximum-security prison after being convicted in 2000 of murder, a killing the police called a hate crime.” In prison, Svensson took classes online and was then accepted into the prestigious Karolinska Institute.
With his criminal record out in the open, controversy arose concerning the character of those men and women whom the public depends upon for its continued health. Just as pressing however, is the ethical concern that a capable individual can be denied a future on the basis of his past. Should an ex-convict with previous Nazi sympathies be allowed to become a doctor? Maybe he has changed his ways.
Svensson proved himself through exceptional coursework and questions about his past were never raised. The discussion really centers on a question of human nature. The answers to the complicated questions at hand rely on the answer to one simple question: Can people change?
From one point of view, it can be argued that Svensson possesses the ‘know-how’ and intelligence to prove himself as a capable doctor. Is it right to deprive the public of a competent medical professional? If human nature is essentially determined by nurture, then it seems reasonable that a person who made unacceptable decisions in the past can be turned around. These ideas can be used to build the argument, made by human rights groups, that Svensson’s expulsion was unjustified.
On the other hand, if human nature is essentially determined by nature, then it will most likely be argued that Svensson cannot be trusted. Once a bad apple, always a bad apple. If a person’s identity and character are determined at birth, there is no rehabilitation project that can ever reform a convicted murderer.
However, there are not only two options. There are some who argue that human nature is determined by a combination of nature and nurture. This makes the issue even more complicated. There is also the notion that a ‘medical professional’ is not just a person with the necessary practical skills. Some suggest that a doctor is also a person who makes the kind of rational, moral decisions which a man guilty of murder has exhibited he does not understand.
The public places an almost unreasonable trust in medical professionals. Would the case be different if Svensson were training to be an architect and not a doctor? Is this a question of trust in the individual or comfort for the public? Which should be more important? It is always interesting to see how basic assumptions about human nature can determine policy and action in a very real way.

-RH, Juniatian, feb. 14 '08