Heart Failure

Found this e-book about a doctor’s disillusionment with the medical education system. Sad to say his observations are also applicable to the local medical school and medical educational system.

This particular paragraph:

“There is an atmosphere of deceit. We are told to tell the parents that the reason we are the third person to ask the same questions and perform the same physical exam - pressing on all the same sore spots - is because we are making sure nothing is missed. Bullshit. The veneer of this-is-in-your-child's-best-interest is nothing more than you-and-your-family-will-be-respected-only-so-far-as-you-can-be-exploited as tools for our education. Self-interest disguised as selfless service.”

reminded me of an episode during my surgical posting...

Bonus Real-Life Story (see Disclaimer)

A couple of medical students came to me asking for ‘interesting cases’ to see. I brought them to a patient with an inflammed gallbladder, and after making them promise that they would NOT repeat the manoeuvre on the patient, demonstrated Murphy’s sign.

A couple of minutes later I walked past the cubicle only to see them trying to elicit Murphy’s sign on the same patient.

What. The. Fuck.

Have these guys no sense of decency or integrity? Or are they just stupid? I mean, Murphy’s sign is nothing but a snobbish doctor’s way of saying ‘this guy has pain HERE’, named after an old dead American guy! How is it educational to see a patient wince in pain over and over again? Just because some vain dead angmoh tagged his name to a particular way of causing pain doesn’t make it educational*, morons!

I regret not having invented there and then the ‘angry doc’ sign:

Erythema in the shape of a hand over the cheek indicative of the student having been punished for a particularly inconsiderate act.

Anyway, those sadistic buggers have probably graduated now and are practising in a medical establishment near you.

Good luck. Stay healthy.

* - OK, angry doc admits he was a jerk to have demonstrated the sign to begin with...