Steeplechase
*steeplechase a medical student’s worst nightmare basically consists of stations were you have 1 min to identify a structure on a cadaver or some pathology on a radiograph and move to the next station. Steeplechase is sh** you’ll probably know the structure but then they’ll place it in some weird way and you wont see jack.
I should be studying ohh .
Last Friday, we had a steeplechase and the girl in front shamelessly kept staring at my work. I spent most of my energy devising strategies to ‘protect’ my work from her. You can only imagine my frustration when the guy behind me actually had the guts to come up to me and tell me how he had also copied my work.
I think I was more pissed about the fact that I was at the disadvantage for not copying too. I was also upset because the boy was someone I actually admired. The nonchalance with which he said it really got to me, like it was normal. A means to an end.
Its easy to blame a system. To say that the lecturers have unrealistic expectations I mean how can you learn all the structures in that crappy book. But I also believe that the problem is within ourselves. We seem to believe that higher grades are more important than honor. If at this stage in our career we’re cheating what stops us from continuing when we treat our patients and have no one that we’re accountable to?
I almost feel like I’m being self-righteous here but it irks me to think that these are the kind of doctors that are being trained; ones without the ability to actually admit to themselves and to others they’ve made a mistake. It could mean the difference between life and death just admitting that you don’t know.
My mother is a lecturer and some students actually hacked into her laptop and stole her exam questions. She told me about this before I started school and I couldn’t imagine how anyone could do something like that. Now I know that if I were faced with that same choice I might falter.
I don’t know what it is about this place that makes you want to succeed no matter what it takes.
I’ve seen girls who lead boys on so that they have their medical school study buddy who teaches them.
Then there’re the people who don’t talk to you till they realize that you can teach them something, then its bye bye till the next encounter.
I don’t know maybe this is the real world and everyone wants to succeed. But at what cost.
Hurting other people’s feelings, cheating, stealing, and lying?
