Privilege

Further to my experience (or missing the chance of having some experience) with our third year students, my friend VW met them, and the encounter proved disappointing - to both side, I suspect. (See http://vwswong.blogspot.com/2010/11/extra.html)

The root of the discrepancy is obvious: To the students, seeing patients and observing what (say) our professor of hepatology does - without a didactic teaching - is their responsibility. To the young professor, he calls it a privilege to learn.

I shall not elaborate what I think is right. (Frequent visitors of this blog know just too well I am always suspicious of the existence of absolute right and wrong.) Nonetheless, the underlying mental process seems worth exploring.

Don't you see the point? There are two possibilities for the students' explanation to VW:

1. They understand, maybe subconsciously, that learning from patient is a privilege, but they are too apathetic to seize the opportunity.
2. They sincerely believe the whole business is their responsibility; the privilege that VW talks about is merely the romantic idea of a naive academic.

You may say neither is true - the students did not turn up because they were focusing on their panel examination. Factually, that's correct - but that's quite beyond the point. It is the choice of wording that the students put up as the explanation that intrigued us.

PS. This method of psychoanalysis is not my invention. For example, as pointed out by Humphrey Appleby, any statement in a politician's memoirs can represent one of six different levels of reality:

1. What happened.
2. What he believed happened.
3. What he would have liked to have happened.
4. What he wants to believe happened.
5. What he wants other people to believe happened.
6. What he wants other people to believe he believed happened.

Go read Yes Minister.