Just for med ed nerds…. On a personal level, Barr helped me understand why I struggled in the first two years of med school: plentiful data showed that humanities majors struggled in the preclinical years only to do well in the clinical years. On a societal level, this book frustrated me: despite data showing that verbal ability and humanistic concern predicts clinical success, we kept on selecting the wrong students and educating them in an antiquated model. We should have listened to Barr. (BTW, Chapter 2 is a great primer for the Flexner era. Would recommend.)