(not so) Utopian Medical Education

Is there such a thing as a perfect medical education? I don't think so, but I think my SNU electives came pretty darn close. First of all, I do not intend to talk shit about my medical school or my country. What I intend to do is reflect upon the different experiences I have had and reflect on the better ones, and perhaps, learn from them.

During my six years studying medicine in UNS, especially the 2 years of clerkship, I am used to being talked down on and viewed as inferior by the residents and staff. Of course this is not true for all cases, I am so thankful for my many teachers, across many departments who have humbly shared their wealth of knowledge and clinical wisdom with me. Having said that, it can be generally considered to be as such. Stupid rules such as the requirement to wear all black to not piss someone off, or some other stupid rules to not enrage some egomaniac doctor, add to the whole Indonesian medical education experience. From what I've heard, I consider myself lucky, there are many many worse centers out there with extreme bullying. Imagine my reaction when I found out that I will be placed in hematology (mostly blood cancers) and my supervisor not only is a staff member at the leading national hospital, but also a renowned scientist! I nearly shit myself when I saw his profile.

Like, what the hell??!! 148 papers and most of them are trials?! I panicked at the thought of him asking me some random targeted therapy for a rare blood cancer that God knows who have heard of other than him. I would not be surprised if Prof Hong referred to me as an idiot sandwich for the whole month and ignored me while I carefully tread behind him as he continued to dart random questions that I would never know the answer to. But what happened was the exact opposite, and this experience would diametrically change my perspective towards medical education!

Instead of being intimidating and prideful, he was so humble and friendly from day one, he even insisted that I just call him Junshik! He asked about my interests and why I chose to do hematology. He listened very very attentively, almost as if he was studying me. It was as if he treated me as a colleague, a friend,... a human being. He treated the residents in the same way, so did all the staff members in the hematology department. Never intimidating, never underestimating, always positive, always encouraging. Something I am unfortunately not used to, nor should I expect it if I were to continue my residency in Indonesia.

Don't get me wrong, their medical education is extremely rigorous and thorough (I will expand this in another post). Its just that, they don't add on unnecessary burden, just focus on the patients and the medicine. I was thinking of a perfect word to describe their attitude, and humanistic sounds like the one. Discussing patients with residents and a visiting student and listening attentively to their suggestions, explaining every question thoroughly in a respectful manner, even asking feedback from an Indonesian student :"). How I wish I would be anywhere near Prof Hong as an educator, and even more as a person. Here is a picture of us having lunch together, even after my electives are over. I will always remember what he said to me on our last meeting. "Sometimes I am afraid of teaching SNU students. Although they are very smart, a lot of them do not have character and integrity. They are doing this as a competition for themselves. They will end up doing a lot of harm to society". Hopefully I will grow to be a doctor and human being like you, Prof Hong.