Rant #2

*WARNING! Possibly lame post ahead.*

So I’m typing this post with only one month left to go... not to start my exams but to finish them. God willing, on the 16th of June I’ll finish my final medicine practical at 14:15hrs.

Many readers at this point will fear that I’m going to start whining on how scarier things are getting with finals fast approaching. Indeed, the pressure is on, but I’m too tired to waste my time figuring out what I’m feeling at this point.

The anxiety started mounting to insurmountable limits since the day we finished psychiatry last November. With everybody reminding us how the practical exams have such a heavy weighting in 5th year, there was, and still is, much pressure on everybody... Pressure to perform... Pressure to have a good knowledge base... To make sure that consultants see your face for when the jitters get the better of you on the day and your performance falters. You know, a familiar face is, at least, proof that you’ve been around in hospital and that the dip in your performance is certainly not due to lack of effort.

Oh yes! The pressure was on way before the month of May. Pressure to get your clinical skills polished... Pressure to get all the physical signs right... Pressure to get the correct diagnosis... To get a pat on the back for your impeccable clinical judgement and for knowing all the impressive small print in the textbooks... The thing is that to work for such an astounding clinical performance in a space with finite resources, you see people competing for the best patients, the best tutors and the best seats during tutorials.

That is what, in reality, makes 5th year such a time of adversity – all this useless competition for nothing. After all, the vast majority of us are going to make it anyway, and our ranking has been out since February. And in the end, no amount of tutorials and fighting will outweigh the benefit of the work you do out of hours on your own or, perhaps, with a friend/study partner.

Nevertheless, 5th year is still perceived by many as a time of great adversity (!). And adversity doesn’t build character... it reveals it! I cannot say that I am particularly shocked by what I saw. I saw it coming from miles away. I mean, what can you possibly expect from people who, last year, spoke of a woman in labour as being “MY vaginal delivery because I booked this mother last week!”? But I was certainly disgusted by what I saw people do to each other.

After all, as much as it’s true that the pressures of 5th year are real, it is also equally true that it is just an undergraduate exam. There might seem to be so much at stake at the moment... We’re tired now... We don’t want that extra three months or one year studying medicine, or surgery, or obstetrics and gynaecology. We want to graduate with the rest of our friends. We need this job because we desperately need the money.

But they are, nonetheless, exams like all the rest. And no one needs to stop down so low just to get the pass mark. To be fair, the majority of people are stooping low for the A rather than the D which, in my opinion, is simply not worth it in the long run. If a medical student is so ready to give up their integrity for a silly distinction, then only hell knows what this person will be ready to give up to climb up the career ladder of success in the very near future...

Truth be told... I'm just too tired to care!!!