WG

WG, my PhD student, just passed the oral defence for his thesis. I was more anxious than defending my own one.

(In my days, MD did not need an oral defence what so ever.)

But yes, it is natural to be more exited on something that we can do very little. I often have some inderal tablets with me when our membership candidates take their clinical examination, and I didn't sleep well the night before Vivian took her exit examination.

Oh, this is not a problem of me only. Some years ago, when VW - our double gold medalist and to me an impossible candidate to fail - sat for the MRCP examination, our man from Pluto rang me up late in the evening and asked, "VW may not be doing all that well. Shall we do something to improve our training ?" (It took me quite a while to sooth our boss - although I was not the least easier in my mind.)

Of course VW passed - with an excellent score. It doesn't mean, however, that our training is good. As Immanuel Kant said: Real genius does not need education.