wankers

was sorting out things to hand in at the end of the rotation just now and stumbled upon my student diary logbook thingamajig we had to do as part of the student portfolio. i disctinctly see that smiling facade with curly hair helpfully pointing out that i sat in with a mostly junior staff for outpatient clinics, trying to mask that tone of smugness with some empathy. what a load of bull. i' wrote down attendance to 15 clinics, 8 of which were manned by consultants. junior staff indeed...

and you, prof. you show me examples of "excellent" student portfolios, telling me mine was "satisfactory" but not "excellent" ...what constitutes as "excellent" in your books? the girl who showed up for 35+ ward rounds and palpated 100+ abdomens in 8 weeks. the girl who included a couple of anatomical drawings from scratch. the guy who included obs/gyn newspaper clippings and wrote up a short commentary on his reaction to it. the ones who included a table of contents to their portfolio. the boy who included twice as much extra clippings and old reports as the required components. obviously, my expanding folder all accordingly tabbed wasn't good enough for you because it was a "shopping cart" of random things without a table of contents. obviously, my 8 extra case reports other than the required 2 weren't good enough for you because i hadn't included any self-reflective comments. obviously, my mindmaps weren't impressive enough because they were only done in monochrome with a smidgen of orange. obviously, you are a weasel for telling me that attending operations wouldn't benefit me in passing my exams and i was exempted yet penalize me for only attending one session as stated in my logbook. i guess the other girl with the 20+ theater attendance dazzled you too much.

you know, instead of showing me examples of other people's work yet again... it might be useful if you had shown me mine at our arranged meeting and pointed out areas where i could have improved. you know, instead of chucking as much info at me in hopes that enough stick for me to pass exams, it might be more useful if you had actually gone through my MCQ paper for yourself and done it again with me. the family doctor, the one who happens to be the program convenor, had to sit down with me to go through my exam paper and he didn't know half the answers.

i wonder if you would tell me my portfolio was an excellent piece of work as soon as you saw a pretty cover page followed by a neat table of contents and beefed it up with random journal articles with flashes of highlighting and scribbles. i wonder if you would notice that i have submitted the exact same student diary as before with changed dates this time around.

and then you! the other prof. the dean of medicine. don't you dare tell me what to worry about, telling me that if he would be concentrating on passing obs/gyn if he was me. well sir, you aren't. he wasn't willing to approve of my doing courses over summer because that would be "overenrolling with 60 credit points" and how it wasn't suitable for a student who's already failed something to do so. man, did i get mad. having told him that course coordinators were happy, that IMET was asking for university support to allow me to undertake summer courses so i could be allocated properly, that the summer courses don't actually have exam components and wouldn't clash with other rotations during the semester proper... none of that mattered as much as policies eh. i nearly shouted at him, demanding to know how they expect me to plan the next year, apply and organize internship and lifestyle arrangements if all he wants me do at the moment is concentrate on passing obs/gyn. did he expect things to magically resolve once i passed the rotation? would he take any responsibility when i've missed application deadlines because i've taken his "advice"?

i think i need to yell more often. he instantaneously agreed to make arrangements with relevant people and write whatever letters were needed so i could start internship next august, seeing that he refused to budge regarding summer courses. of course, one must not forget who one is dealing with... can't trust 'em until it's in writing. they are after all, a whole bunch of wankers.