Logical

While talking about elementary logic that should have been taught in high school, I met J – an eminent professor who has a number of influential research work in his field.

“Szeto, do you have any protected time in your calendar?” He asked.

“No, not during the office hours.” I said slowly, “What’s up?”

“You know, several junior academic colleagues of my department come to me and complain that they have no protected time to do research.” J explained.

“I must say I agree with them. That doesn’t sound right. After all, they need quite a bit of research work to renew their contract and apply for substantiation.”

“But they are clinicians and are supposed to be doing clinical research! Shouldn’t they be interested in seeing patients?” The professor seemed a bit annoyed with my answer.

“My friend, the argument isn’t logical. They have the interest of seeing patients is very different from using all the time for clinical duty.”

Alas, good clinicians and scientists are not always logical.