SOAP

Many of the visitors of this site may know that third-year medical students of my university have to submit a handful of case reports as part of the continuous assessment of their medical clerkship. The standard of these reports are, as you would expect, highly variable. From the angle of the receiving side, we are often disappointed, but very little could be done. Since the case reports constitute a negligible percentage of the total score, students could advance to the fourth year of study even if they score zero in the case reports – as long as they score not too badly in the OSCE (objective-specific clinical examination).

Some months ago, when we reflected this problem to AK, the coordinator of this exercise, she said, “For reports that are far from acceptable, we can return to the student without giving a score – and ask for a re-do. You know, they have no problem even if the score is zero here, but they cannot have it blank.”

I must say that’s a brilliant suggestion. And, on a recent occasion, I was forced to follow the advice of our professor of endocrinology.

A few days later, I received the revised report from that student. To my surprise, the new version was not much different from the original one – just like juggled the letters of cheating and call it teaching. Again, I returned the second report to PC, our secretary, and said, “This is no good. I’m afraid this student has to do it once again.”

PC twisted her lips. I’m sure she was thinking, “What a piece of SOAP.”

PS. SOAP stands for stubborn obsessive arrogant professor.