25 Nov 2010

Extra

After seeing GY, the same group of students approached me for an extra tutorial. (See http://ccszeto.blogspot.com/2010/10/absent.html for details.) I could not help mentioning that they had skipped several clinic sessions during their rotation.

“We know we were irresponsible,” the student was most apologetic. “This will never happen again.”

Irresponsible? They had totally missed the point. Learning from patients is not a responsibility. It is a privilege. Seeing that they still did not understand, I asked them to join our ward rounds and promised some teaching.

They never came.

I refused to be disappointed last time but now I do. They probably considered me unkind not to offer the extra tutorial right away. But I really can't just sell point-form notes and exam skills like the local tuition classes.

He who studies medicine without books sails an uncharted sea, but he who studies medicine without patients does not go to sea at all. –William Osler

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