Meet the Recipients

August 24, 2007
The Lucidicus Project is pleased to award its twenty-eighth MISDK today to Alya S., a recent graduate of Upstate Medical University (New York) and currently a first-year resident in Psychiatry at Long Island Jewish Medical Center. Having been influenced by Ayn Rand's fiction in college, Alya believes strongly in the laissez-faire model. However, as she encounters increasingly complex arguments for socialized medicine, she finds that she needs to bolster her understanding of philosophy and logic, in order to better guide her views for health policy. She is looking forward to gaining some new perspectives from the materials in the kit.

August 23, 2007
The Lucidicus Project is pleased to award its twenty-seventh MISDK today to Kyle E., a third-year medical school at the University of Arizona College of Medicine. Kyle is currently doing his clerkships in Phoenix, and is a proud and active member of the American Medical Association's Medical Student Section (AMA-MSS). As someone who is always looking for new ways to expand his knowledge about medicine, he feels that it is imperative to have a well-rounded perspective and informed view of the profession from a policy standpoint. Kyle is concerned with the erosion of medicine's esteem in recent decades, and would like to discover ways to make a difference.

August 22, 2007
The Lucidicus Project is pleased to award its twenty-sixth MISDK today to Geeta Y., a second-year medical student at the Northern Ontario School of Medicine. Geeta has a master's degree in Health Systems, and has also worked abroad on projects such as international development in Malawi. Geeta has been influenced by Ayn Rand's novel Atlas Shrugged, but has lingering questions about the philosophic argument against a single-payer health system. She hopes that the materials in the kit will challenge her thinking and clarify her understanding of how healthcare would work in a free society.

August 17, 2007
The Lucidicus Project is pleased to award its twenty-fifth MISDK today to SC Tan, a fourth-year medical student doing his clinical year at the University of Manchester in the United Kingdom. He is interested to know more about how capitalism works, and how market forces would change the healthcare industry. With his home country of Malaysia in the process of drafting a new national health policy, he is in the process of deciding what the best approach entails: something that resembles the current American system, something that resembles the UK's system that provides cradle-to-grave care, or something completely different, such as a free market system for healthcare.

August 10, 2007
The Lucidicus Project is pleased to award its twenty-fourth MISDK today to Aaron C., a 2000 graduate of Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia, PA. Following medical school, Aaron completed a residency in internal medicine at Beth Israel Medical Center in New York, and then did a fellowship in clinical endocrinology at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland. Most recently, he has taken over a solo endocrine practice in Bethesda, after working for a year in a group practice in Baltimore. Aaron has been an admirer of Ayn Rand's writings since reading Atlas Shrugged in medical school, and is looking forward to reading the other materials in the kit and seeing how the ideas relate to his practice.

August 8, 2007
The Lucidicus Project is pleased to award its twenty-third MISDK today to Matt S., a second-year medical student at the Northern Ontario School of Medicine, based out of Laurentian University in Sudbury, Ontario, Canada. Matt studied electrical engineering before pursuing a career in medicine, a switch he made for the intellectual challenge, portability, and variety offered by the field. In Canada, Matt often sees his country's publicly funded health care at the center of election policies and the subject of heated debates. Unlike many of his colleagues, Matt has remained unsold on the idea of government-run medicine. He is interested in learning more about the case for capitalism, and is especially curious to see how laissez-faire theory handles certain issues such as fraud, quality control, and credentialing.

April 30, 2007
The Lucidicus Project is pleased to award its twenty-second MISDK today to Charles D., a first-year medical student at the University of New England College of Osteopathic Medicine. Charles is pursuing a career in family medicine and would like to practice in a rural area someday. He is very interested in learning more about free markets and capitalism and how they would work in the field of medicine. With the major political parties talking more and more about instituting socialized medicine in the United States, Charles believes it is important for him to gain a better understanding of the implications of such a system, and to learn more about other possible systems, such as capitalism.

March 9, 2007
The Lucidicus Project is proud to award its twenty-first MISDK today to Stephen C., an undergraduate student in his senior year at Binghamton University, SUNY. Stephen has already applied and been accepted by the New York College of Medicine, and is currently waiting to hear back from other schools before making a final decision. Whichever location he chooses, he intends to pursue a dual DO/MBA degree if possible, giving him training in both osteopathic medicine and business. He is very interested in learning about medicine from the capitalist perspective, and would like to understand better the political and financial side of medicine.

February 12, 2007
The Lucidicus Project is proud to award its twentieth MISDK today to Gregory S., a fourth-year medical student at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio. Greg will be entering his general surgery residency in July, after which he has plans to also obtain an MBA, specializing in Health Care Management. He is passionate about changing the face of healthcare in America and constantly looking to understand the reasons why the healthcare is the way it is, and how it can be improved. Greg writes that he greatly appreciates the work of The Lucidicus Project and feels privileged to receive an MISDK.

February 8, 2007
The Lucidicus Project is proud to award its nineteenth MISDK today to Esther J., a first-year medical student at the Virginia Commonwealth University School of Medicine (in the tradition of the Medical College of Virginia). Esther is originally from Los Angeles, California, and received her bachelor's degrees in Biology and History from the University of California in San Diego. As a participant in Junior State of America, an organization that fosters political debate among high school students, she learned of the importance of philosophy in politics. She would like to learn more as she progresses through medical school (the faculty of which, she reports, has thus far been quite left-leaning).

January 22, 2007
The Lucidicus Project is proud to award its eighteenth MISDK today to Daniel G., a second year medical student at the University of Miami. Daniel received his undergraduate degree in Anthropology from the University of Florida, where he was active as an advocate for liberty and individual rights. He is very concerned with the prospect of socialized medicine taking root in the United States, and the effect it could have on health, innovation, and economic prosperity. Through the materials contained in the MISDK, Daniel hopes to learn more about the moral and economic case for a capitalist healthcare system.

January 16, 2007
The Lucidicus Project is proud to award its seventeenth MISDK today to Binh L., a first-year doctor of pharmacy student at the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences. In addition to her interest in healthcare, Binh has also spent a summer studying Political Science at the University of Memphis. She finds the way in which the politics and economics of healthcare are discussed in the United States troubling, and wishes to gain a deeper understanding of what the implications of socialized medicine would be. Binh does not believe that the choice, cost, and quality of healthcare should depend on the actions of the state. Indeed, she views these types of policies as attempts to undermine individual rights and integrity. It is very dangerous, she concurs, for health providers to be blind to these questions and issues.

January 12, 2007
The Lucidicus Project is proud to award its sixteenth MISDK today to Liz D., a first-year medical student at the University of Liverpool, in England. Prior to studying medicine, Liz studied philosophy and ethics for A-level in addition to her science subjects. She chose her current medical school in part because it emphasizes the need for having a good knowledge of how other subjects relate to medicine, including philosophy, ethics, and economics. She views these subjects as complementary to her studies of the basic medical sciences, and indispensable in terms of preparing herself for a life and career as a doctor.