Weirdos You Meet At Med School
Weirdos You Meet At Med School
I've got a confession to make.
When I went to med school I was a bit naive.
You see medicine wasn't my first career.
I'd previously worked in finance in a London firm and as a fresh faced graduate in my first job the behaviour of the so called professionals working there shockedme.
Work place bullying, people getting blind drunk in the middle of the day, a disgruntled employee setting fire to the records room (I had to spend weeks photocopying partly burned documents) and a partner in the firm absconding with millions of clients cash.
And that was all within the first year!
So when I went to med school I sort of expected things to be different, after all this is a caring profession. Surely there would be a better quality of person?
Let me tell you.....
These are all 100% real cases.
First of all there was the person with a vomit phobia.
They would literally freak out if anyone even suggested they were going to vomit.
Now you might think that medicine isn't such a good career choice for someone who literally has a phobia about sick people.
I thought that too.
But this person apparently didn't.
Then there was the girl who almost got kicked off the course for persistently cheating in the exams.
She even continued to do it after they warned her not too.
I believe the only reason she wasn't kicked out is because they didn't catch her until the last year and by then they'd invested so much money in her training that it was unthinkable to throw it all away.
They did force her to attend multiple Soviet style re-education ethics sessions at the GMC however.
Then there was the guy who for the first few weeks of the course I called "Harry Potter" (because he looked just like Harry Potter obviously)
I don't like to give people nick names but in this case I was forced to as I didn't find out his real name for a few weeks.
I'll never forget it, on the very first day of the course I was walking down the street at lunch time in front of the med school when I recognised a guy on my course that I'd seen in the same lecture hall as me that morning.
There were only 70 of us on the course and I hadn't spoken to many people yet but I did recognise the face.
As we approached I looked at him to make eye contact and say hello.
But he put his head down, didn't make eye contact and walked on by.
At first I thought it must be because he hadn't recognised me and I didn't give it much thought.
But then it happened again. And again. And in fact for the whole 4 years he totally blanked me and never said hello in passing.
I'll never know why.
Maybe he did it to everyone. Anyway he seemed happy enough with his own little group of friends so I never said anything.
Then on the very last day of the course I was leaving the med school building for the very last time when I noticed him walking towards me.
I didn't even glance at him when suddenly I heard "Peter, some of us are going to the park to take some photos, do you want to come?"
I almost cried, I wanted to hug him.
When I actually started working as a doctor there were some unpleasant characters too.
You can pretty much guess who they were...
Arrogant consultants who thought they were too important to even talk to a junior doctor.
Other doctors on the team, only one year above me who thought they could palm their work off on me just because I was "lower down" than them (no! they're not supposed to do that! but some of them think they can get away with it as you rely on them for your assessments).
BUT...on the whole it is a supportive profession to work in and most people are nice.
Just don't have rose coloured glasses and think medicine is a Shangri La of work place hugs and Care Bears.
At the end of the day people are people whatever profession they're working in.
Now if you've read this far...
I didn't spend half an hour writing all this out just to whinge about the people I've met along the way....
Or to put you off your chosen career.
No...I want the best people in my profession so I want to do my best through the stories and information on this blog to motivate YOU.
You CAN do it and one day you'll have your own funny stories to tell and motivate the next generation of doctors.