Rat Race to Medicine

A close family was visiting us today. Both the parents were doctors. The elder son was in the twelfth standard, gearing up for the entrance test for admission to the medical course M.B.B.S. He had joined a prestigious coaching class for getting coached for the common entrance test he would have to sit after the twelfth standard exam. “The pressure of the studies is too much” said the mother. “He is feeling toxic”. “It was so at the time of our son’s exam too” my wife said. But he had opted for engineering, not medicine. “Our don has no time to do anything else. His teachers at the class are very strict. When he did not do well in a unit test, the teacher confiscated his cell phone. He returned it only after he reached top grades 15 days later. He was right. Our son used to be glued to the cell phone all the time.” “Now he is not glued to it?” “No. Not after the cell phone has been confiscated again” said the mother. “Again?” “Yes. His grades dropped after the phone was returned. Now it won’t be returned for three more months, and that too if he tops the class. We agreed with the teacher. He cannot finish studies if he is distracted all the time. He has to read six books for each subject, besides the notes given by the coaching class. He has to solve multiple choice questions from three books. Each question’s answer has a reference to one of the six books.” “Is he studying the subjects in first or is he studying them by solving the questions?” I asked. It appeared it was both ways, but more by solving the questions. “But then he will be a trained expert at solving the questions rather than a student with an in depth knowledge of the subjects” I said. They agreed. “And where is the joy of learning?” They had no answer to that one. “The teacher wants him to drop mathematics and take psychology for the board exam. He gets three days after all other papers to prepare for it. It seems it is a scoring subject.” I was stunned. Giving up mathematics for psychology, a subject one has not been exposed to ever, only for getting into a medical college? It was indeed a rat race, and we had not realized when we had turned our beloved brats into those rats. These same people would later study multiple choice questions rather than learn medicine for getting admission for a postgraduate course. I was thinking of the famous movie ‘Three Idiots’ and its message when our guests left.