I believe that this is because my body and mind is irreversibly damaged/distorted by years of medical school training. I believe that the Brain surgery that was done on my brain made it non compliant to any students not conforming to the uni culture of last century.
Let me recall some highlights...
In year1, we had a Professor of Anatomy who was so fierce that grown men will cry when she walked in. The 'name who must not be mentioned' will walk around with a forcep in the dissection hall, randomly pick up a structure and BOOM "Why is this? Origin? Insertion? Function??" Most of us were mentally castrated by the time we finished anatomy and any survivors would have been poisoned by the all overwhelming Formalin anyway! By the way, we dissected with our BARE HANDS!
We had Prof Raman in Physiology who recurrently threatened to hang us on the tree whenever we flunked his MCQs. Many of us would have died many times!
And Prof Loke of Biochemistry made us feel so so small when he wrote on the Blackboard with BOTH HANDS simultaneously and effortlessly the complicated formulas of Biochemistry like you and I writing a nursery rhyme. OK we felt like Cretins by 1st year!
By some unknown miracle we survived year1 only to plunge into the arms of Prof Chai in year2, his Microbiology in no way made his hands micro.. for he will without hesitation pinch anyone of us squarely in the belly when we do not know the Stains, Cultures and immunology of all his unseen friends. OUCH3! BTW this was before the days of measurement of abdominal skin fold thickness, had the good Professor known then, he would have collected enough data for his PhD.
Prof Prathap of Pathology was the gentleman of gentlemen, ever so calm, cool and collected. OK he was probably the only man in medical school who did not scold us, BLESS the man.
In Parasitology, we stirred shit in saturated saline like how your mummy would beat flour to make a cake, the difference being that the cake will smell delicious while we smell in a manner that gave reason for the medical faculty to be placed in the far flung corner of the campus. It also explains why the beautiful girls from the Arts faculty stayed put in their diagonally placed faculty.
Some of those parasites may well have entered our brains too for we also slept, studied and ate in the very same 'multi-discipline' laboratories'. ![]()
Pharmacology was about Pharmacokinetics and Phamacodynamics; it made our minds as contorted as the double helix. The poor cats from the Clinical Hostel involuntarily gave their lives for us to understand "Therapeutic Index" and "Lethal doses"! Aiyo, I still shudder when I think of the poor feline on that heated table hooked up on monitors. OK another Psychological scar lasered into my brain! ![]()
Whoopie! We finished the Basic sciences and walked proudly into University Hospital with our Brand new stethoscopes and tendon hammers. 3 years of Clerkship followed BUT wait!! Clerks sit down and work, we STOOD for 3 years! Now I understand why my knees hurt whenever I stand for long now. ![]()
Students nowadays do NOT understand the meaning of the word "TERROR", nope you do not until you are selected by the drawing of straws to present the Long Case to Prof Danaraj. Now thats pure terror. The good Professor's expectation of History is so detailed that War and Peace would look like a short story in comparison. His expectation of our physical examination is so complete that THE ENTIRE Tally's that you all use today will seem inadequate in his eyes. THE PATIENT IS ALWAYS COMPLETELY EXAMINED, a concept today's students simply fail to grasp to my eternal irritation. And the tendon hammer will whisk about freely like a conductor's baton, occasionally landing on our thighs as a reward for a really ignorant answer!
My stomach probably developed gastritis from the ward rounds and clinics of Prof Florence Wang, it was interminable as she patiently spoke to EVERY patient in the ward and clinic, examined every patient personally NO MATTER who did so beforehand and then grilled the Houseman and students in the entourage. She taught me that while it is important to treat the patient's physical illness, it is even more important to treat the patient's mind and show him/her that you care.
In surgery, the teachers constantly reminded me that my knowledge of anatomy is as low as "the skin of a pig's belly"... aka NEXT TO NUTHIN! Ok thats one reason I chose Internal Medicine.
In Psychiatry we had a lecturer who wore a BLUE shirt for all the years that we were at Uni! And Prof Deva will ask and ask and ask "WHY".Patient cannot sleep sir....... WHY?, Because he feel stressed sir..... WHY?, because his business has problems sir.... WHY?..... et infinitum.
And in Paediatrics Prof Lam will literally JUMP up and Down on the spot whenever we do something or say something "STUPID"! "This child was apparently well until.... ". "Just because the ^%*_+ Hutchison says that you start the presentation that way, you mindlessly can ONLY do it that way!!!!" JUMP3!
And Prof Sinnathuray of OG will literally STAND at the entrance to catch all the students who came late! Half my students today will be queuing at the Dean's office today to explain if we follow the same methods! Now we have a sweet counsellor to slowly talk sense into them.
So much for why your brain damaged tutor today FREAKS out when the students come late, not know their basic sciences, or do a physical examination so ANAEMIC that Pernicious Anaemia seems more pink! It is really because of the software fed into me that refuses to move into the 21st century.
--
There are only two mistakes
one can make along the road to truth;
not going all the way, and not starting.
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