PEDIATRICS Vol. 83 No. 2 February 1989, pp. 217
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POLITICIANS SHOULD MEET STANDARDS, TOO

J. F. L. MD

I read with interest the article concerning the New York panel that wants to have physicians take competency tests for relicensure.

I welcome this effort and would encourage this with one qualification: that our elected officials, especially those at the state and federal levels, have some basic education before governing similar to that required of physicians before practicing medicine. We cannot begin to practice medicine until we have gone through years of rigorous, demanding preparatory education, then must pass competency tests (board exams).

Our elected officials, however, have no such requirements. I would suggest that these elected officials have some basic education in governing and be required to maintain a certain grade-point average before they are permitted to run for office. They should be required to take competency tests concerning world history, economics, human relations, and world affairs. Politicians also should not be exempt from recertification. Certainly, world politics have changed as much or more than anything in the field of medicine.