Probably the only place where we pay full attention to what we are being taught as a part of our medical curriculum is in a ‘clinic’. A clinic is basically a mini – lecture where an exhausted Post graduate resident or a student-friendly teacher teaches students about the disease whose case has been taken by a courageous student to present. These clinics are conducted from the second year of MBBS up to the final year exam where all the attention that we paid or did not pay gets converted into marks.
A clinic is carried out in a side room/ seminar hall/ Out-patient department of the concerned department, and sometimes in the emergency rooms too. The most intriguing place I have witnessed a clinic is in the corridor near the boys’ toilet. 10 people jostling to listen, take down notes and prevent their feet from being stamped. This displays the ‘thirst for knowledge’ that students have. The audience of a clinic consists of students from all years of MBBS and thus it’s sometimes hilarious and obviously embarrassing when a junior manages to answer a high-end question that a senior fails to even comprehend.
Basically you need to be well-connected/ resort to persuasive messaging to receive an invitation for a clinic. Once you get to the concerned location, you should consider yourself lucky enough if you manage to find a small square space to place your feet and a chair to lean on for support. A clinic generally goes on for an hour and a half, in which towards the last 15 minutes you will see people dozing, scrawling their names on their books and a few sincere students struggling to answer the questions put forth by the teacher. Sometimes, the patient is also brought to the side room where he ends up looking incredulously at us as if saying ‘if they become doctors , they are definitely going to curb India’s population problem by the level of knowledge they have’.
But anyone who has passed MBBS with flying colors will definitely dedicate a part of his success to the patient-care learnt during these clinics. The struggle is worth the benefits and I guess it could be termed as an ‘ Evil Boon’.
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