LETTERS: Inaccurate GAPSA statement

To the Editor: Furthermore, four GAPSA reps spoke to the issue. Of these, three made strong unambigous statements in support of the proposal to give the UMC a seat on council. The other, second-year Wharton graduate student Alex Lloyd, who alone is cited in your article, wondered how then one would decide on similar future requests by other groups. That point, in fact, was well adressed by several comments in the discussion, so it's hardly a good soundbite. Lloyd is further mysteriously referred to in the caption to the picture accompanying the story, though he is not in that picture. The caption suggests he may have played a special role in considering the request for the UMC seat. He is then subsequently the only named GAPSA source on the issue, though his comments were the only reservations expressed amongst the four significant GAPSA contributions I can recall off-hand. I expect the DP at least to correct the factual error which attributes to a GAPSA rep a ridiculous statement most nearly approximated by an axe grinding UA member. Given the DP has already editorially expressed interest in and support for the proposal, I find it remarkable that public debate on the issue is covered with such scant regard for accuracy. Alex Welte GAPSA Chairperson SAS doctoral student u To the Editor: I would like to correct an innaccuracy in your article on the discussion of the United Minority Council ("Committees recommend giving UMC a Council seat," DP, 3/6/97). The article states members of the Graduate and Professional Student Assembly GAPSA made negative comments about the proposal to grant a University Council seat to the UMC. This was not the case. No GAPSA member spoke in opposition to the proposal and all but one expressed their unqualified support. While the article points out GAPSA representative Alex Lloyd "asked why the UMC should be given priority over other student groups on campus," Lloyd actually asked what the rationale would be for letting other groups have Council seats in the future. This was a much more benign -- and less charged -- question than was indicated by the article. More importantly, the article goes on to state "other GAPSA representatives suggested that Council would lose credibility if it decided to give a seat to any student group aside from the UA." No GAPSA representative made this or any similar statement at the meeting. Aside from Lloyd, every GAPSA member who spoke at the meeting expressed unqualified support for granting the UMC a Council seat. As a graduate student, I am concerned undergraduates and other members of the university community get an accurate account of the views expressed by GAPSA representatives. I urge the DP to publish a correction indicating that no GAPSA member expressed the views attributed to us in your article. Matthew Ruben GAPSA Council representative SAS doctoral student Proud to be in Nursing To the Editor: I would like to applaud Nursing School Associate Dean Mary Naylor, in regards to her discussion at Van Pelt College House last month. Through reading the DP article, it appears that Naylor and other nursing students like myself tried to bring across the message that nurses are a vital part of the care system in the hospitals. And to think that there are some people in this day and age that feel that pre-med students are the "be all and end all" students of the hospitals baffled me. Nursing is a growing career choice. To think College junior Ali Zaidi would even suggest "nurses graduating from the University will never receive the expected return on such a large investment as they would if they attended medical school" is imposterous. I may only be a second-year Nursing student, but I know that the weight of going to the best nursing school in the country carries weight, and will enable me to apply to some of the best hospitals in the country to look for something even as simple as a summer internship/extern program. This is the "return on my investment" that I see as of now, and it can only get better. And for this, I am proud to say that I am a nursing student. As Naylor stated, there are problems with "delivering? care in a system largely dominated by a 'medical approach' to treatment. This approach is concerned with the disease process? while the 'nursing approach' considers the patient from a community perspective." (DP, 3/3/97) This goes to show nurses are a needed and vital aspect of the care program of patients. I have been asked many times why I wanted to be a nurse, rather than a doctor. My reply is this: doctors don't deal with the patients themselves. They give out diagnoses and prescribe medicine and leave. Nurses talk to the patients and explain what the doctor didn't. As it was stated in the article, "It's a doctor's job to cure and a nurse's job to care." Susie Marin Nursing '99