Doctor's sexy symbol: stethoscope

Everyone was excited at the lecture theater, chattering and shouting, especially the girls – extreme enthusiasm overflowing from their heads today, otherwise it would be about myocardial infarction or penicillin that would overflow from a medical student’s head. All in the excitement was the stethoscope – the sexy symbol of a doctor.

I have grown up watching how people were dignified in the white coat with the stethoscope over. And now that I have finally got a steth for myself, I hardly believe that I would be treating patients with him over my shoulder. Well, I must better learn how to use the steth than romanticize about it. 

A random sample...

In the past one year at a medical school, we have delved into the depths of human body as well as the human society. We studied even the minutest cells in our body as well as how doctors must hold up professionally in the community.

Given the spectrum of knowledge and skills that we have to master, it is quite justifiable that MB BS takes not less than six years of intensive study. How heavy studying medicine could be is clearly shown in the number of people who sleep in the lectures. It is intellectually challenging as well as physically not forgiving as we have to keep ourselves standing and going around the wards, sometimes eight hours at a stretch.

Not only does it affect us personally, it also influences our social relationship. There was a friend of mine who broke up with her girlfriend simply because he could not give her adequate time. But nonetheless, medical students, excluding myself, date among themselves. This, I guess, is purely to save time of studying. If the guy studied chapter one, the girl could study chapter two. And they could discuss about both chapter one and two at a date - so, it is always a win-win situation over time.

Medical students do not get time for leisure - that is the accepted norm. However, no human machine can go on working for the whole day. It happened recently that we had lectures from 8:00 am til 12:15 pm. It was a four hour continuous shot only to be worsened by a practical session that ran immediately after the lecture, from 12:15 pm till 3:15 pm. Tired and hungry, I could barely keep my eyes staring through the microscopes at those tiny malaria parasites.

The story doesn't end here. Me and my friend rushed to the canteen right after the practicals as we were running hypoglycaemic, or in simple terms, we were running low in petrol of our body - extremely hungry. Well, it is a common sense question but sometimes most doctors overlook common sense. What I mean to say is that 3:15 is not a lunch time. So there was no rice and curry at the canteen. This makes me doubt whether medical students are really more intelligent than others.