The turn ons

" So I am sadistic and I get pleasure from the anticipation of certain humiliation and blows to my self-esteem..."

Two rotations went by. I can't believe it but its finally the Head and Neck rotation and then its the long awaited holidays. The rotation everyone has been harping about.

There are horror stories and there are horror stories. Of a certain professor who is famous for his humiliation of students in front of patients and colleagues, making students feel stupid about their lack of knowledge.

But I will reserve judgement. I find that consultants who are mean are usually the best in the field. They head whole units and have years of research behind them. In fact I googled my tutor to be for the next 6 weeks and he's quite famous indeed. He scored 195 hits! Call me sadistic but I am looking forward to his tutorials. To have the opportunity to learn from such a talented doctor renowned in Australia for his neurosciences work is a complete turn on.

In my previous rotation, everyone heard about the renal consultant who threw out a student from his clinic for not being able to list twenty causes of acute renal failure. She managed to recount five causes, not a bad effort indeed, when it was her first ever clinical week in her entire life.

So I am sadistic and I get pleasure from the anticipation of certain humiliation and blows to my self-esteem and voluntarily went for this particular consultant clinic.

He was very nice to me in fact. I guess doctors do get tired of demeaning students after some time. The lesson to be learnt is never to be the first one.

Speaking of turn ons, a particular surgeon gave us a lecture on surgical infections. (No despite the degree I am studying, infections don't turn me on.)

This surgeon used to be a MODEL.

And one only has to look at him and wonder if he still is a model because he is still pretty darn good looking. And a bloody surgeon too.

Back to the subject of what I will collectively call the 'aim for the heart missiles': harsh criticism, mind blowing set downs, recurrent humiliation, painful sarcasm, crushing blows to the self-esteem by professors, surgeons and consultants. I had the chance to witness one the other day.

The student became very defensive and started arguing back with the professor. Mind you, this professor is a respected retired doctor with numerous papers in his years. Who sacrificed his time to teach us without pay.

I smiled to myself.

"Mate, just say Ok thank you and shut up. Do you even know who he is?!" This is of course is said quite fervently to myself.

The argument went on for some time. Finally the student gave in.

I came up with several hypotheses after observing this encounter and several others.

Why medical students argue:

1) They suffer from delusions that they are always right. This is demonstrated by the anal need to defend themselves despite evidence of the contrary. They are unable to admit they could possible be wrong or even worse they don't know anything.

2) They have this thing called the big head. The ego that comes with being a medical student; he/she believes that one has to own some form of unique intelligence higher than normal people in order to be in this field. A delusion kept alive by the very culprits themselves; medical students and doctors.

At this point I will take the opportunity to say I beg to differ before people start throwing e-tomatoes at me.

3) The big head cannot take deflation. This includes being set down in front of colleagues (read: other intelligent people) and patients (read: other not so intelligent people).

4) Such a deflation sets of the reflex mechanism: I am such an IDIOT, it's staring right in my ugly face but I'm too blind to see it and I shall argue till I'm blue in the face.

5) This reflex mechanism translates into actual action of which the student begins to argue using already faulty equipment akin to making a strand of cooked spagetti stand on itself. The audience meanwhile are amused by the latest form of entertainment.

6) The student begins to dig a hole, he/she is not aware of, and progressively sinks into the black books kept by doctors called: The big headed students that were so blind that even laser surgery won't help them.

As I progress deeper into this clinical year, I shall attempt to come up with more hypotheses.
Upcoming theories include:

Why nurses despise female medical students

Why coffee expresso machines should exist on every floor of the hospital

Why Huntingdale buses should start operating from 5.30 am everyday instead of 6.38 am.

Why surgeons have a warped sense of humour. Said a urologist to his patient, "Hi! I'm the dick doctor! And these are my dick asisstants!"

Bravo.