The Tragedy of Postgraduate Teaching

I had planned the lecture series well. The time had been kept between 4 and 5 P.M. so that all residents except a few in the emergency room would be able to attend, since the routine operations and outpatient clinic would be over by that time. The teachers had been against this because it was beyond their duty hours. But when I explained the need that the residents could not attend lectures between 3 and 4 P.M., all except one teacher had readily agreed to teach at that time. The topics were suggested by the residents themselves; probably those they found difficult or important or both. I had made attendance compulsory, just in case anyone did not feel like attending. A post-test was scheduled after each lecture, so that the residents were forced to pay attention, just in case anyone decided to sleep or dream. I wound up an important meeting and reached the venue exactly at two minutes to 4 P.M. There were only 6 residents there. The number gradually increased to 15 by 4:10 P.M. and 36 by 4:25 P.M. I asked them their reasons for coming late, and only four had been busy in the emergency room. All others had been doing something else or nothing, and still had been late for the lecture. I got quite upset that the very residents who wanted lectures on these topics and for whom we were teaching beyond our duty hours. I had spent quite some time preparing for the lecture, as one normally does. I had spent two hours making five sets of questions papers, each with 10 questions in different order, so that they could not write the neighbors’ answers and get away with it. I decided to give them the test, and the results of their test are as follows. Yr Number of Candidates with Marks 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 1 0 1 4 4 3 2 0 0 2 2 1 2 1 5 0 0 3 3 0 1 2 2 1 1 0 1 No one had 8, 9 or 10 marks out of 10. Only 4 had 4 out of 10. Two had 0 out of 10. The third year residents had the lowest scores, though they were scheduled to sit their MS examination in 3 more months’ time. I was extremely discouraged by their attitude as well as performance. One may say they could not be expected to answer questions without being taught on that topic. That would be correct except for the fact that the questions were based on theory taught to undergraduate students, and practical training they received practically every day in the outpatient clinic. I left them without teaching them a single thing on that topic. I further told them that the lecture series would be cancelled, since they did not seem to be keen on it and it was forced on their teachers anyway; unless they submitted a letter signed by them all stating that they really wanted the series, and would be present for all the lectures before their teachers arrived to teach. It remains to be seen what they do. In the meantime I am feeling very much down, and as tired as after running a half marathon.