Med School Dean Apologizes for Lifting Speech

The University of Alberta's medical school dean was diagnosed with a bad case of plagiarism.

The dean of medicine at the University of Alberta has admitted that he copied several paragraphs of a convocation speech delivered by a New Yorker writer in his address to graduating medical students. Dr. Phillip Baker conceded in a letter sent Sunday night that his speech to the 2011 graduating class incorporated significant chunks of Dr. Atul Gawande's address to last year's graduates of Stanford University's medical school. Students allegedly Googled parts of the speech as Baker was giving it and found Gawande's, and then followed along as Baker recited it word for word. A number of students have expressed their discontent over the lifted speech, noting that if they had plagiarized someone else's work, they would have been booted from the school.