5 February 2007

Work Hard, Play Hard

Are medical students less sociable these days?

I's an often quoted fact 'that' in years gone by medical students were almost exclusively middle class white boys who spent the vast majority of their time drinking daddy's money away in the union. By all accounts, they, and the unions, had a great time.

Now, with significantly more diverse students, is the social ethic disappearing from medical school?

Union attence is down across the country, there are fewer sports teams than there have been and the culture is notably far more work oriented. It's worth considering whether this is necessarilly a bad thing? You might say no, surely a future doctor who concentrates on work is preferable. To an extent, I'd disagree.

Medicine has always been an extremely sociable profession, it's almost a prequisite of the job that a doctor is a team oriented person with excellent people and communications skills. It may be a generalisation, albeit with a basis in fact, that the most sociable people tend to be those with the people skills who have the ability to get on with people. I can identify the people I'd want to work in a high workload, high pressure job with and they aren't the ones who know everything.

Of course there is a time and a place for knowledge, but it certainly shouldn't become the be all and end all.

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