Change

Shortly after our discussion on the allocation of teaching hours, I attended a College meeting on the arrangement of membership examination.

I shall not elaborate what we did. It was a Saturday afternoon and many of us were only interested in finishing the discussion early. After some exchange in opinion on various matters, a senior consultant from a peripheral hospital remarked, "Don't you all find the questions we put up rather boring? There are no more than a handful of topics that we can examine!"

"Exactly. In fact, it is very easy for a pragmatic candidate to prepare for the examination," another consultant agreed eagerly, "One does not need to know very much about medicine; all he needs to be familiar with are a couple of scenarios!"

"That's why the College has to change the format of examination once every few years. It's not for improving the system, but, if we have to examine our candidates on different topics, we have to keep changing the system we use." The professor from the other side of the harbour said.

I consider that remark illuminating.