Concentration Camps

 

It is often said that government hospitals do not offer much space to their patients who often have to spend days lying in dirty trolleys in the corridors and cannot be provided with beds. But people seldom speak of the plight of medical students who do not have proper classrooms to learn in. One can argue that wards are the best places to learn directly from patients. True that. But they probably forget or have never faced the plight of being one of the 40 students barely breathing inside a room meant for 6 people at max on a hot summer day trying their level best to concentrate on a chest Xray showing “Egg on string” appearance. The mind at that point becomes a perfectly reflective surface through which no studies seep in and the only thought one has is to jump out of the window.

The same can be said for ward classes during which hapless students standing at the back barely get to peep in and observe clinical examinations. Students often have to hear, “Why don’t you attend classes?” But why would they if class means standing in the ward for 2 to 3 hours being able to see nothing. While NMC recommends small group learning, the reality couldn’t be further from that. Whether one gets to learn in “small” groups depends entirely on the “Unit division”. Some people are unfortunate enough to be posted in units where the teacher asks them to get lost on the very first day refusing to teach or the teacher himself/herself remains lost only to show up on the last week of posting and grumble “Where were you people all these days?” Then again, in the exam these lost teachers are the ones who say, “I have never ever seen you in the ward. No wonder you know nothing.” These unfortunate ones have to loiter from one unit to another often at the mercy of their batchmates who sometimes shun them unkindly for increasing the crowd in their assigned “Small groups”.

Are the people who send their friends away from their own assigned units toxic? Probably not. They do so because of the increasing crowd which makes learning difficult as well as because of some of the over-enthusiastic students who always want to be in front during every class and do not want to make a single compromise, thus forbidding the people at the back to see. One at times wonders why they do it. Well, the answer probably is the fact that by the end of third year most wise people realize that MBBS is essentially a cut-throat race and it is easier to treat it as such instead of falling into stupid emotional traps like friendships or wanting to grow together. In this game of “survival of the fittest”, there is no room for letting others grow. Also, is there a guarantee that tomorrow in a similar situation the other person will step aside for you? Thus, a vicious cycle begins.

In a desperate attempt to learn, one takes the help of unstable chairs, stools or even patient beds to stand up and have a bird’s eye view of whatever is being taught. Unfortunately or fortunately, till date no student has fallen to have a fracture and make the authorities realize the sorry state of UG med students. Will an accident be enough to open their eyes anyhow? That is indeed doubtful.

Does this problem only affect the students? No. It affects the patient who is sick and yet has to put up with 20 students staring down at his groin and then practicing hernia examination on him one by one. It also affects the teacher who has to teach without kicking the hapless female student who sits at his feet during class, that too in kho-kho position, to take up minimum possible space.

Is the situation entirely as dreadful? Probably not. Some departments do offer air-conditioned seminar room where the old HOD Sir still teaches the students the art of clinical examination. Some other departments offer spine-chilling large seminar rooms where less than 10 students have to appear for a quiz under the scary supervision of their masked professor. As they say, silver linings! But that doesn’t lessen the problem itself. Will a time ever come when MBBS students can have classes like normal humans? As far as the current situation indicates, not anytime soon.