General

During a recent meeting, KL - our star teacher - made a remarkable comment, "Many of our students reflect that they are taught too much on medical specialties or sub-specialties, but not on general medicine. In fact, many of them know more about cardiology than I do, but, when they are asked about handling some medical emergencies, their response could be horrifying."

"How could that be?" Some of us asked - I suspect many of you many have the same question.

"This is because many of our colleagues are too keen to teach their own specialty and pay little attention on general medicine," our professor of gastroenterology explained, "Of course part of the problem is from our system: Students attend tutorials and seminars, but not morning rounds, out-patient clinics, or emergency takes. Unfortunately, our hospital is too sub-specialized and overcrowded with students. It would be better to send out more of our students to peripheral hospitals so that they could get a better exposure to general medicine!"

I nodded. On the face of it, the blame is entirely legitimate, and, as academic staff, we should try and focus on general medicine in our teaching.

But, when I come to think of it again, I'm not that sure.

Let me explain tomorrow.