WhatsApp (and other social media) are a great source of being connected to your friends —old and new— and also for staying abreast of current affairs, sharing opinions, even creating opinions. It is also a platform for spreading rumors and wrong messages. Hardly anyone verifies what we get in a forwarded messages. Most people I know tend to ignore such messages — thankfully; some tend to question its veracity and a few take efforts to think through those and perhaps post a rebuttal. I am one of those few :-)
Today I received this message on our school group:
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On the outset, it might sound like a genuine concern about the situation of medical students in India, but as I read through it, I realized that the author is making a mountain out of a molehill. So I decide to rebut some of his points.
Disclaimer: I have nothing against this said Dr. Praveen Angrish, the author of the message. I don't even know who he is, and I hope he is a good doctor and all in his professional life. It's just the tone of that message which sounds as if the government and the society at large is doing some grave injustice to the medical students, which, I think, needs to be challenged.
(1) He says, ```Basically they [med. college profs] just explain the techniques of diagnosis and treatment … A MEDICAL COLLEGE IS JUST A SUPER-SPECIALTY HOSPITAL WITH MEDICAL STUDENTS OBSERVING THE PROCEDURES.```
Well, what passes as teaching in other colleges or schools is nothing more than transfer of the knowledge in books to the heads of students via the teacher. That is becoming an increasingly mechanical job, and hardly reflects the real world situation. In our jobs today, how much time/energy do we spend in learning anything this way? We’d rather read a book, watch a video or ask a colleague, right? I am sure most of our medico friends on the group - and even non medicos - will agree that they received most of such ‘learning' from their friends and in hostel rooms rather than in classrooms, e.g. learning mnemonics to remember names of chemicals.
Secondly, how many of our medico friends here would like to substitute the “observing” part of their study with pure lectures. Dr. Angrish makes it sound like doing it is useless, and only classroom teaching is important, which the medicos are not getting enough of!
(2) Coming to engineering education, he says: ```No direct community service by the teachers!```
Are the medical teachers doing community service or research? Do they not publish papers out of what they do with their patients? Same happens with the engineering colleges. (Yes, I agree, with the sudden boom in the number of eng. colleges over last few years, you won’t see research happening everywhere, but that is a different problem altogether.) Moreover, if the med. colleges don’t have the easy patient inflow, when and where are our medical students going to get to do the practicals of various diseases and conditions they need to be ready with when they step out with the MBBS degree?
When my cousin got an admit from a med. college in Karnataka, his father, himself a physician in Delhi, went to the college and took a look at the OPD first. Only when he saw how diverse and rural it was, he was satisfied and put his son in.
```Does the civil engineering department build houses for the poor?```
The civil eng. department of my college NIT Surathkal had the most sophisticated labs in that region and the entire soil testing for Konkan Railway was done there. Similar domain based and need centric work is done in all the labs all the time.
(3) On the rural internship/bond:
I agree it’s not the best system, but at the same time, one cannot ignore the fact that rural India really needs good medical services which we -as a society- are not able to provide at present. One year bond was a stop-gap arrangement to take care of a part of that problem. Of course, mandating people to do something they don’t like never works in the long term, and I hope a better solution emerges soon.
(4) ```In fact, a medical student is the CHEAPEST GRADUATE produced by the government. (cheaper than even BA literature or LLB)```
Now that statement needs some hard data to back it up, but let me just put into perspective how cheap we all are, when compared to some developed countries. HSBC produced a report in 2014, where they ranked the USA the third costliest place wrt college fees. Their average per year cost is $36,564. This is a loaded figure, since there are so many different factors; let’s take a simplistic one - in state fees for public schools with 4 year undergrad program: $18,943/year. Multiply it by 4, you get $75,772, and convert it to rupees, you get Rs. 45,46,320. How much did we pay for our education? I’d say less than Rs. 4,00,000, on average. Edu. loan is one of the fastest growing debts in US, which has increased by 63% in last decade, by some estimates.
(5) ```Doctor owes less to society than a BCom failed student!```
I think we all owe a lot more than we realize. Let’s not trivialize it by crude comparisons.
***
Having said that, I don’t mean to belittle the struggle our med. students have to go through. Med. edu. has hundreds of problems, and they need to be addressed seriously. But such messages over-simplify things, which does not work for anyone. It is becoming an increasingly tough job to become a doctor, let alone to be a good one. I just hope they don’t get all frustrated by the end of it, and start hating everyone else :-)
Today I received this message on our school group:
—————————————————————
Dr. Praveen Angrish----
How much does it cost to educate a medical student?
6 lakhs? 13 lakhs?
Take the budget (yearly fund) of running a medical college and divide it by the number of medical students and you will get the figure.
But is this money really spent on the students?
Let's see.
What are the things bought with this money?
Medicines
ECG machines
Scanners (CT /USG)
Patient beds
Wards
Operation theatres....
THE WHOLE HOSPITAL BUILDING IS ONLY FOR THE PATIENTS!
What about the teachers?
The teachers are doctors, who are engaged full time in treating the sick (outpatient work, ward rounds, operations, medico legal - court and certificate work)
Basically they just explain the techniques of diagnosis and treatment to the medico during the routine work.
Theory and seminars (pure rescuing) are rare duties for these doctors- maybe once in a week or once in a month.
But are there staff only teaching?
Yes. There are three departments which do not routinely do patient- related work routinely.
Anatomy, physiology, and pharmacology.
WHAT ABOUT THE OTHER "NON CLINICAL" DEPARTMENTS? AREN'T THEY PURELY FOR TEACHING MEDICAL STUDENTS?
Even the so called "non clinical" departments like patho and micro are full time occupied in processing blood tests, infections and tissue samples.(patient care)
So this means there are just about 45 teaching staff, four or five lecture halls, some seminar halls, couple of hostels, and an "academic section" (13 clerks) and a principal - purely involved in teaching medical students!
The students have to pay tuition fees, van fees, hostel fees- to pay for all the above mentioned "luxuries"
SO.....
A MEDICAL COLLEGE IS JUST A SUPER-SPECIALTY HOSPITAL WITH MEDICAL STUDENTS OBSERVING THE PROCEDURES.
The money spent purely on the education of a medical student is so small, because......
all the (medical college) funds are used for patients, wards, even cold rooms to store dead bodies
BUT NOT FOR MEDICAL STUDENTS!
Now go to an engineering college.... Or , go to an arts college-
Everything there-
The buildings,
The countless numbers of
Lecture halls and seminar rooms
The office sections (all of them)
The laboratories,
The playgrounds,
And the salaries of every single teacher, clerk and sweeper....
IS FOR THE STUDENTS!
ONLY FOR THE STUDENTS!
No direct community service by the teachers!
Just teach the students and go home! No other work!
What about engineering colleges?
Their precision machinery, their high tech labs, their computers...
Does the civil engineering department build houses for the poor?
NO
Does electrical department provide lighting for the rural?
NO
Does chemical department help in control of pollution?
NO
Does mechanical department help repair our transport buses?
NO!
but every single medical student serves the poor and needy during house surgeoncy!
No lunch!
No dinner!
No sleep!
And after that?One year RURAL SERVICE!
Does the B Com student help government in clerical work?
Does engineering student spend a year in PWD? or electricity board?
WHY NOT?
WHY IIT STUDENTS GO TO AMERICA WITHOUT SPENDING A SINGLE MINUTE IN SERVING INDIAN POOR?
Are IIT graduates allergic to India?
Dear friend, government spends crores on education, BUT NOT FOR MEDICAL STUDENTS!
In fact, a medical student is the CHEAPEST GRADUATE produced by the government. (cheaper than even BA literature or LLB)
Spread the word. Doctor owes less to society than a BCom failed student! But still they serve you!
Your money will not compensate their sacrifices.
Respect their service to you.
That's all they want in return.
If you have a doctor friend, a doctor relative, or a doctor whom you love and respect, show your love by forwarding this message!
————————————————————— On the outset, it might sound like a genuine concern about the situation of medical students in India, but as I read through it, I realized that the author is making a mountain out of a molehill. So I decide to rebut some of his points.
Disclaimer: I have nothing against this said Dr. Praveen Angrish, the author of the message. I don't even know who he is, and I hope he is a good doctor and all in his professional life. It's just the tone of that message which sounds as if the government and the society at large is doing some grave injustice to the medical students, which, I think, needs to be challenged.
(1) He says, ```Basically they [med. college profs] just explain the techniques of diagnosis and treatment … A MEDICAL COLLEGE IS JUST A SUPER-SPECIALTY HOSPITAL WITH MEDICAL STUDENTS OBSERVING THE PROCEDURES.```
Well, what passes as teaching in other colleges or schools is nothing more than transfer of the knowledge in books to the heads of students via the teacher. That is becoming an increasingly mechanical job, and hardly reflects the real world situation. In our jobs today, how much time/energy do we spend in learning anything this way? We’d rather read a book, watch a video or ask a colleague, right? I am sure most of our medico friends on the group - and even non medicos - will agree that they received most of such ‘learning' from their friends and in hostel rooms rather than in classrooms, e.g. learning mnemonics to remember names of chemicals.
Secondly, how many of our medico friends here would like to substitute the “observing” part of their study with pure lectures. Dr. Angrish makes it sound like doing it is useless, and only classroom teaching is important, which the medicos are not getting enough of!
(2) Coming to engineering education, he says: ```No direct community service by the teachers!```
Are the medical teachers doing community service or research? Do they not publish papers out of what they do with their patients? Same happens with the engineering colleges. (Yes, I agree, with the sudden boom in the number of eng. colleges over last few years, you won’t see research happening everywhere, but that is a different problem altogether.) Moreover, if the med. colleges don’t have the easy patient inflow, when and where are our medical students going to get to do the practicals of various diseases and conditions they need to be ready with when they step out with the MBBS degree?
When my cousin got an admit from a med. college in Karnataka, his father, himself a physician in Delhi, went to the college and took a look at the OPD first. Only when he saw how diverse and rural it was, he was satisfied and put his son in.
```Does the civil engineering department build houses for the poor?```
The civil eng. department of my college NIT Surathkal had the most sophisticated labs in that region and the entire soil testing for Konkan Railway was done there. Similar domain based and need centric work is done in all the labs all the time.
(3) On the rural internship/bond:
I agree it’s not the best system, but at the same time, one cannot ignore the fact that rural India really needs good medical services which we -as a society- are not able to provide at present. One year bond was a stop-gap arrangement to take care of a part of that problem. Of course, mandating people to do something they don’t like never works in the long term, and I hope a better solution emerges soon.
(4) ```In fact, a medical student is the CHEAPEST GRADUATE produced by the government. (cheaper than even BA literature or LLB)```
Now that statement needs some hard data to back it up, but let me just put into perspective how cheap we all are, when compared to some developed countries. HSBC produced a report in 2014, where they ranked the USA the third costliest place wrt college fees. Their average per year cost is $36,564. This is a loaded figure, since there are so many different factors; let’s take a simplistic one - in state fees for public schools with 4 year undergrad program: $18,943/year. Multiply it by 4, you get $75,772, and convert it to rupees, you get Rs. 45,46,320. How much did we pay for our education? I’d say less than Rs. 4,00,000, on average. Edu. loan is one of the fastest growing debts in US, which has increased by 63% in last decade, by some estimates.
(5) ```Doctor owes less to society than a BCom failed student!```
I think we all owe a lot more than we realize. Let’s not trivialize it by crude comparisons.
***
Having said that, I don’t mean to belittle the struggle our med. students have to go through. Med. edu. has hundreds of problems, and they need to be addressed seriously. But such messages over-simplify things, which does not work for anyone. It is becoming an increasingly tough job to become a doctor, let alone to be a good one. I just hope they don’t get all frustrated by the end of it, and start hating everyone else :-)
