Child

HC was on sick leave last week. AL kindly took over the disappointed group of medical students and taught them during ward round.

One day, AL asked them, “Can you tell me the components of the Child-Pugh score?” With some help, the group managed to recall the five components.

Suddenly, a boy wailed, “Do we really have to know this? Is it in the syllabus?”

When AL told us the story later that week, she was not upset. “What I felt was the huge generation gap. I cannot imagine saying something like that in front of my seniors if I were him.”

I am not an expert in generation gap. Let me answer his questions more directly.

No, you may be assured that I will not ask about the components of the Child-Pugh score. Our syllabus discourages reciting hard facts. That is not good education.

Instead, if I were to ask you about Child-Pugh score in the examination, I would ask something like this, “Why do we no longer use the Child-Pugh score to prioritize transplantation listing in Hong Kong?”