For those of you who haven't yet arrived at medical school and are wondering what it is like, just imagine what high school would have been like if everybody was legal drinking age.
Other people, including Audaci, have written about it really well. (Think "Mean Girls" + lots of textbooks = medical school.)
For the main part, I keep out of the cliques. I'm too old, anyway, and have found a group of sane and friendly people. We get along well, support each other, and don't get involved in the silliness.
But seriously, I would like to know who some of these people are trying to impress. I have never before been in a course where girls wear designer clothes to university lectures. Everybody else is in jeans and sensible tops, and they look like they are ready for a day out at the races. All they would need to do is add a fancy hat and they would be right to go.
I wonder if they really know what kind of job they are studying for, or how they will handle having to work and train in the public hospital system for the next seven years at the very minimum.
Sure, some doctors might recognise the designer-wear that they are sporting. Maybe even some patients. Will it impress them? Maybe if they can keep that fancy long-sleeved shirt spotless while disimpacting some old man's bowel, doing an enema or dodging projectile vomited blood. Maybe not.
The main thing I get confused about is where on earth they get the money for these clothes. Every other time I have been at university, we were all strapped for cash, and were happy to be wearing decent, clean clothes. The thought of wearing a $500 dress to university would have seemed (and still does seem) downright mad.
They must get the money from their parents. But what parents would be happy forking out this kind of money for university-wear? What kind of perspective on life are you indoctrinating in little Sally and Johnny when they think this kind of expenditure is normal and justified? I know they are in medical school, but doctors aren't sickeningly rich (for the main part).
And what must people like this think of the rest of us? Or even worse, what will they think of the patients they have to spend their days and nights helping? How will you deal with the homeless person who wears six layers of clothes to keep warm and hasn't taken any of them off in months, all while you are wearing an outfit that is worth more money than this person has seen in their entire life?
5 comments:
High school indeed. Far too many immature future doctors in my class for my taste. Congrats on the 100th post as well.
Overheard during my first year of medicine:
"I just bought a pair of ugg boots. They were a hundred and twenty dollars. But that's only sixty dollars a shoe, so I think that's all right." I was disgusted.
Have you found that these are typically the students with a poor work ethic, too? I certainly have.
I've sometimes become so angry with my peers' patronisation of / disdain for patients that I've said something (generally politely). It seems in the patients' best interests, if not in mine.
On the other hand, in the sake of fairness, there have also been 2 of the designer dress types who have surprised me greatly with their compassion and insight.
I guess you can't pick a person by what they wear.
But I do wonder exactly why some people are in the course!!!
Not quite in medical school yet, but I've figured it out that I'll never quite avoid such ostentatious dressers who also happen to be rather pretentious in their demeanor. I've accepted it as a fact of...school? It wouldn't be totally accurate to say that one only encounters designer-dress types in school; I see them around my city as well. Not everyone I've met in this classification is totally pretentious or incapable of compassion for less fortunate people, though. Some just happen to like fine clothing, I guess. "Fine" clothing...
Woman, you just described about half of the women in my PhD program. It's not speech path, I don't know where this comes from. We used to be a normal, hard working bunch of (dare I say) slobs. But there's a new crop of students who dress UP, all the time. I too have found myself wondering where they get the money for the outfits. We're PhD students for god's sake! We're all broke, right?
More than mere clothing alone, what bothers me are the following:
The tendency to refer to each other (in collective unit) as "girls".
The fact that every time I come upon two or more of them talking, I swear to ever loving god, they are talking about dieting and being too fat for this or that (article of clothing).
(runs screaming from the room...)
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