Back at the desk
Posted on September 15th, 2008, 8:38 PM by David Graff
I have been trying out the Mike- and Brian-inspired couch study. It has not been progressing at the rate that is necessary, so it’s back to the desk, and even after just a day, I already feel more productive. It’s only about 5 weeks till the exam, which means there’s no time to mess around. I am pretty apprehensive about the upcoming assessment, which includes an exam on just this half of the year, and then another cumulative exam.
The part that concerns me and has been in the back of my mind since forever it feels like is the ethics essay. There is a section of our program called “Ethics and Professional Practice”. It’s really medical law. Which means Acts, Cases and a whole lot about some chick named Regina.
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we’ll be praying for you Dave…you’ll do awesome…and the ethics part, you’ve always had a real ‘ethical’ bent…you ‘get it!”
Love you tons
Jenn
Thanks Jenn! I appreciate it!!
That’s the thing tho.. it’s not really about what’s ethical, it’s about what has been determined to be legally ethical… It’s like the legal outside lines. The fence line.
I’m so glad I’m not in law!
Letter to my friend who is in first year law –
SO medicine has this tricky domain called ETHICS. It’s tricky because it has nothing to do with morals and values, doing the “right” thing or making the “right” decision. ETHICS is a mis-nomer that causes the medical students at UQ a lot of grief! In truth, ETHICS is really medical law. We learn about specific legal cases that apply to topics like consent, abortion, duty of care ect….
This domain doesn’t appeal to the majority of medical students, who are intellectuals with a broad spectrum of social opinions on many issues, because they wish to argue their personal opinions. As a lawyer, I’m sure you are going to learn pretty quick that your individual opinion carries little weight and that cases are won and lost by decisions/rulings made in previous cases (HAha, the things you learn from watching legally blond). Maybe because I have an arts degree I am used to this type of learning and see it for what it is without getting worked up about it. That being said, the ETHICS teacher is generally hated and constantly receives e-mails from students arguing their opinions. It’s funny that the majority of med students have a background in biology and aren’t content to turn to the most important skill that has got them this far – blind memorization!
I also feel that this type of course is intended to shape our professional persona. It isn’t acceptable to have extremely opinionated doctors running around impressing their opinions on their patients. It is good that, from the beginning of first year, medical students are introduced to the idea that society (through law) dictates what is acceptable medical practice.
One of my colleagues when discussing ethics said bluntly “I’m so glad I’m not in Law” naturally I thought of you buddy 😉 Sorta funny my degree gives me a small taste law. Next thing you know they will be teaching lawyers anatomy. Hope first year is going well!
Brian
What he said ↑
Ok, so I totally feel your pain re: ethics. Let me tell you a little story about the “clinical ethics” instructor at the University of Waterloo Doctor of Optometry program…
The first day he walks in 30 min late. He is a psych PhD from the main campus, not a regular optometry prof. He spends the next 30 minutes of the class lecturing us on how we think we are the cream of the crop at that school, and really we’re just crap, and not really going to be doctors at all since TRUE doctors are PhD’s! Needless to say that for the rest of the semester he had a hard time getting our class to warm up to him!
After all was said and done I cannot remember a thing that he taught us, and the best advice we recieved regarding legal stuff was from another prof who said “write down everything you do, and don’t do and why, and be sure to appologise when you make a mistake and you’ll be fine”
Love ya Dave, good luck with the studying