Organizer

JW and RM are busy organizing the final examination.

One eternal difficulty is to recruit sufficient number of cases - with reasonable physical signs. For this very reason, coordinating final MB is generally regarded as the most trying task for an academic staff.

But, on a second look, it reflects the problem of our examination. Why is it so difficult to recruit suitable short cases ? Alas, because patients with good physical signs are not that common in the ward and clinic. In other words, it is not a bread-and-butter part of our daily medical practice - why on earth do we put so much emphasis in it, but not areas that we expect our graduates to be more capable of ?

PS. I am not against all physical examination. Nonetheless, I see no real value for a house officer - and even a consultant respiratory physician - to be able to detect an apical lung fibrosis by percussion and auscultation. Would it not be more important to assess by the bedside how well (or poor) the asthma is being controlled ?