Not impressed.

So, I recently had something termed a 'surgical workshop', with mock OSCE stations (though we were assured they would be informal).

I have done this sort of thing before, and knew what to expect. I also knew that I was a bit sketchy on some of the potential stations, but was prepared to accept being told off by the doctors, if it meant an improvement in my skills.

What I didn't count on was one of the doctors (an F1 or an F2, I can't remember which, but certainly not higher) being, for want of a more polite term, a complete - actually, I had better use a more polite term...hmmm...okay, what I didn't count on was him being so pretentious and rude.

I did not mind in the slightest his harsh comments on my technique (the station was to do an abdominal exam), where I felt it due. What really annoyed me, though, was at the end when I said, following a tirade of (admittedly deserved) horribleness (sort of hoping for a tiny bit of positive feedback, since I'd received none so far, and I knew that there had been SOME good things in my examination), "So, was there anything else major I could have improved on, or was the rest okay?" , the following exchange took place...

Him: "Well, in an abdominal exam, you kind of inspect generally then go to the hands, then you go to the face and so on. I've no idea why you went for the eyes first."

Me: "Well, after general inspection, I've always done it top to toe. I didn't realise it mattered. I was taught it that way."

Him (smirking with disbelief, patient's still there by the way): "Oh really? Who taught you that then?"

Me: "I can't even remember. I've ALWAYS done it that way."

Him (with a derisive laugh, and the most pretentious tone you can imagine): "Well, I went to (says name of my uni), and I was never taught that way."

Me (obviously pissed off now): "Well. All right then. Thanks very much."

What in the world was that about?! I thought it made no ounce of difference which way round it happened, as long as both were covered. And I've had some pretty mean consultants (CONSULTANTS) watch me do abdomen exams in the top-to-toe manner and they've never had a problem with this method.

Well, there you go. A prime example of 'acting above your standard' at its best, I feel.

The famous 'Bell Curve'

D'you know what struck me the other day?

They supposedly select 'the best of the best' (ahem) students for medical school, right?

Then why does the bell curve appear again in terms of performance...surely we should all be on par...?

The obvious answer is that no matter what the distribution of marks - be it five between the top and bottom or be it fifty, a bell curve can still be drawn.

But forget the graph, then. In terms of speaking to people - we all have different attitudes towards the course, if not different marks. Some people are keen as hell (regardless of whether they need to be, obviously performance is a combination of hard work AND intelligence), and some aren't (once more, regardless of whether they need to be, though usually when they don't need to be).

If they're selecting the best of the best, the most dedicated, then why does that distribution appear every year? Do they have, like, a 'hard working' quota to fill, a 'party-hard-but-still-do-well' quota and a 'slacker' quota or something? They MUST do, given that it happens every year.

Either that or we, like, fall into place as that's, like, the natural order. This makes no sense, though. As apparently they pick the best of the best...

No idea. Perhaps there is an obvious answer. Falling into the latter category of the above three, though, it's not apparent to me...

More later x