Withdrawal

I have very little to say about the examination per se.

Well, I have. One of the question was about the recent withdrawal of dextropropoxyphene, an ingredient in several commonly used pain killers. (For those without a medical background, in November 2010, the Food and Drug Administration of USA requested the cessation of all sale of two major dextropropoxyphene-containing medications from the US drug market because of the risk of heart arrhythmia in patients who took the drug.)

To our surprise, many of the candidates were not aware of the details of this event. Specifically, most of them did not know what adverse effect led to the withdrawal of the drug.

You may think that's the problem of our postgraduate education and training.

Alas, once again, although we see the same thing, we arrive at entirely different conclusions.

My opinion is simple: Since the drug is widely prescribed for decades, if the adverse effect is common and not infrequently life-threatening, we should have personal experience of seeing it. And, therefore, even if a trainee does not read the news and study the textbook, they should have encountered a case of this kind.

But, obviously, none of the candidates we met in that afternoon - and there were 42 of them - had such an experience.

I won't discuss any further.

PS. After dextropropoxyphene disappeared from the market, many physicians switched to Tramadol, of which Grünenthal GmbH, a German company, holds the patent.

Yes, Grünenthal GmbH is the company that invented and marketed thalidomide in the 1950s.