Question

The next day, I met Little Red at the bedside tutorial. I had actually seen her during ward round already, just that I was not as observant as HC in regard to the hairstyles of girls.

We saw a patient with excellent physical signs of left homonymous upper quadranopia and hemineglect. After a student had checked the eyes, I asked whether he had completed the examination of the optic nerves. He said yes, and I explained that the examination of the eyes should include visual acuity, visual field, light reflex, accommodation reflex and ophthalmoscopy.

“The accommodation reflex is eye convergence and pupillary constriction, isn’t it?” Little Red raised her hand and asked.

“Yes, it is,” I answered.

“So it isn’t a test of the optic nerve, is it?”

“Um,” I hesitated, and then continued, “but the afferent pathway is through the optic nerve. A good point, though.”

Later that day, I met PC at lunch. The pathologist complained that his daughter’s Chinese teacher was totally inflexible. “She insists that the students must follow her way of writing Chinese characters, though there are actually more than one ways to write the same word.” I listened in silence and was quite happy that I was never offended by the questions and challenges from students. Over years, I had been wrong on many occasions. But if my students can ask questions and find the answers themselves, who say this is not a job well done?