Sir
Sitting aloof in this wilderness, far from the madding crowd that is my home state nowadays, it seems surreal, almost dissociative, to receive this from you: that some medical students, of a prestigious medical college, have been caught cheating in exams.
Of other things, it reinstates my lax sense of belonging to a system that I despise, yet which has bestowed me with the best years of my life: my medical school, and the machinery running the juggernaut of medical education in my home. As I squint over the first page (albeit rare) headline generated by a medical college, on matters as trivial as an annual exam, I can not help but prod my not so distant memory: sitting through the same tests, walking those same corridors, and cramming my brain with the same rote that my predecessors have since eons.
I never wanted to be a doctor. And thank heavens, I have not become one. I slept through medical school, crammed up before tests, devoured midnight oil for practicals, and talked my way out of exams. I possess only a working class memory, plebian intelligence, but sterling capacity for rote. As regards empathy, I would variably be classified as insensitive, to the degree of even being pachydermatous. My respect for human life is no more than an average working class no-damn-giving individual; in fact, I resent antibiotics because of my respect for unicellular life. In spite of all these shortomings, I managed to squeeze and wiggle out of medical school, somehow survive internship, and get myself a medical degree. Never, in my years since medical school, I have noticed myself transform into the mythical, almost Godlike creature, the proverbial `Doctor'.
From day one in medical school, it was hammered into my subconscious, that I belong to a special class of Doctors, the `cream of society'. As if being recruited into some secret society, I walked through all the rites of passage, listened to stories of great physicians and their instantaneous diagnoses, memorised catchy `Medical quotes' (look it up in Google, there's a world of wit out there!), and as if by deliberation, committed myself to rote.
Now, like any self respecting rote learner, I am aware that logic, critical thinking and imagination are key to the process of education; but I found these skills increasingly unnecessary, to the point of being an impediment, in medical school. The premises are astrew with `made easy' notes, usually handed over from the senior class (ad infinitum), to redeem us poor souls from the inferno of exams. And I asked myself, if these few pages of a condensed down `note' can get me a medical degree, then why bother my brain over such trivialities?
And so it went. I went berserk on my rote learning spree, enrolled myself in a few `private tuitions' (yes, there are coaching classes for doctors too!), chewed on whatever was thrown at me, developed a good sense of what to expect in exams, and one fine morning I was quietly handed over a shiny new medical degree by the clerk. He even put a stamp on it before continuing with his mid-morning lunch.
My freshly minted fellow doctors went all hoopla about it and arranged a `Felicitation (whom? ourselves?) and Oath Taking (Yes! THAT oath you know all about) Ceremony'. I was overwhelmed by the gravity of the oath that they had sworn on that day, and I am sure that they are living up to it. But I could not bring myself to say `I consecrate my life to the service of humanity'. I am not even sure what the entire gamut of `humanity' entails, let alone devoting myself to its service.
Never have I cheated in an exam, or I should rather say, been caught cheating. I have not carried a book under my bench, never eavesdropped into the whisper going on in the next row; I have seldom excused myself from the exam hall for a bladder break. No. My methods were more unconventional. I committed everything to my memory. I copied stuff from my head onto the answer sheet. Stuff that I don't comprehend till this day. Which makes me no less a doctor (rote learning has got me an MD! I am a `specialist' now! Yay!), but places me next to these hapless bunch of students found `cheating' in an exam.
Its such a welcome feeling to know that I belong to the majority. Don't you agree?
Sitting aloof in this wilderness, far from the madding crowd that is my home state nowadays, it seems surreal, almost dissociative, to receive this from you: that some medical students, of a prestigious medical college, have been caught cheating in exams.
Of other things, it reinstates my lax sense of belonging to a system that I despise, yet which has bestowed me with the best years of my life: my medical school, and the machinery running the juggernaut of medical education in my home. As I squint over the first page (albeit rare) headline generated by a medical college, on matters as trivial as an annual exam, I can not help but prod my not so distant memory: sitting through the same tests, walking those same corridors, and cramming my brain with the same rote that my predecessors have since eons.
I never wanted to be a doctor. And thank heavens, I have not become one. I slept through medical school, crammed up before tests, devoured midnight oil for practicals, and talked my way out of exams. I possess only a working class memory, plebian intelligence, but sterling capacity for rote. As regards empathy, I would variably be classified as insensitive, to the degree of even being pachydermatous. My respect for human life is no more than an average working class no-damn-giving individual; in fact, I resent antibiotics because of my respect for unicellular life. In spite of all these shortomings, I managed to squeeze and wiggle out of medical school, somehow survive internship, and get myself a medical degree. Never, in my years since medical school, I have noticed myself transform into the mythical, almost Godlike creature, the proverbial `Doctor'.
From day one in medical school, it was hammered into my subconscious, that I belong to a special class of Doctors, the `cream of society'. As if being recruited into some secret society, I walked through all the rites of passage, listened to stories of great physicians and their instantaneous diagnoses, memorised catchy `Medical quotes' (look it up in Google, there's a world of wit out there!), and as if by deliberation, committed myself to rote.
Now, like any self respecting rote learner, I am aware that logic, critical thinking and imagination are key to the process of education; but I found these skills increasingly unnecessary, to the point of being an impediment, in medical school. The premises are astrew with `made easy' notes, usually handed over from the senior class (ad infinitum), to redeem us poor souls from the inferno of exams. And I asked myself, if these few pages of a condensed down `note' can get me a medical degree, then why bother my brain over such trivialities?
And so it went. I went berserk on my rote learning spree, enrolled myself in a few `private tuitions' (yes, there are coaching classes for doctors too!), chewed on whatever was thrown at me, developed a good sense of what to expect in exams, and one fine morning I was quietly handed over a shiny new medical degree by the clerk. He even put a stamp on it before continuing with his mid-morning lunch.
My freshly minted fellow doctors went all hoopla about it and arranged a `Felicitation (whom? ourselves?) and Oath Taking (Yes! THAT oath you know all about) Ceremony'. I was overwhelmed by the gravity of the oath that they had sworn on that day, and I am sure that they are living up to it. But I could not bring myself to say `I consecrate my life to the service of humanity'. I am not even sure what the entire gamut of `humanity' entails, let alone devoting myself to its service.
Never have I cheated in an exam, or I should rather say, been caught cheating. I have not carried a book under my bench, never eavesdropped into the whisper going on in the next row; I have seldom excused myself from the exam hall for a bladder break. No. My methods were more unconventional. I committed everything to my memory. I copied stuff from my head onto the answer sheet. Stuff that I don't comprehend till this day. Which makes me no less a doctor (rote learning has got me an MD! I am a `specialist' now! Yay!), but places me next to these hapless bunch of students found `cheating' in an exam.
Its such a welcome feeling to know that I belong to the majority. Don't you agree?
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