The Art of Selling Doctors...

I considered myself to be a pretty good advisor before the Madmen phenomenon took root.  I could take a student's personal statement and extract the best parts of it, turning the anxious aspiring medical student into a confident world traveller and volunteer. My track record was decent, correcting the odd split infinitive and run on sentence.  Then something happened.  I became addicted to the world of Don Draper, digesting five seasons of blue cheese salad wedges, martinis, and cheesier affairs with such devotion, I huddled around my computer just to watch the most recent season (illegally) from a website in India.  When I returned from a three week vacation, I was a changed man.  I didn't start buying Brooks Brothers suits or coveting icy blondes, but suddenly I had mastered the art of the sell.  Looking deeply into a student's eyes, I saw a product that needed a pitch.  Working with only a resume and some polite boasting  as my "creative", I became an ad man for  future surgeons and paediatricians, who were  brought up to feel empowered, but not permitted to show it to any degree.  Thus  here I sit perched, legs crossed across my large wood veneer desk,  coaxing humanity, compassion,  and leadership out of two dimensional pieces of paper representing those who will one day play gods in surgical theatres and community clinics.  Your internal organs or aching bones may thank me one day.