Mock Viva Fiasco

Education of undergraduate students is chalked out by the medical council and health university very well. However what exists on paper and what actually transpires are poles apart. We have these students who want self education or automatic (i.e. without learning anything) education. So they do not attend lectures and practicals. The Boss felt that we have to draw them back to clinical education and he conceived a novel idea for the same. He conducted mock viva for all students. They were put in an auditorium housing 300 students. Mock examiners and students were made to conduct mock viva, which was shown on two giant screens. The program was conducted by the surgery department. We could not do it last year because of H1N1 epidemic. This year the surgery department conducted the program again. I heard they had a bit of a problem getting students to attend. But the captive students doing clinical terms were caught and made to attend. Our program was scheduled after they finished their all clinical postings. We did not raise the money required through kind pharmaceuticals as suggested. We used our laptop, web camera, LCD projector, and existing audio system of the auditorium. The money for the equipment was our own money, not that of the corporation and not from pharmaceuticals. Our Assistant Professors carried the instruments and pathology specimens themselves when they could not find a servant to do it. One professor was program director who spent days planning and organizing the whole thing. I gave them my 3 D images of instruments and photographs of specimens, to be shown in addition to the actual instruments and specimens. We invited external examiners from a sister institute. All of our professors and associate professors turned up for the event. Then the waiting began. We waited for a half hour. Not a single student arrived. After we got tried and left, four students (one of them the class representative) arrived and said they could not get students to attend and could the program be please cancelled? Comments of different people on that occasion were as follows. “But the students are in the canteen, common room, and katta” the custodian said. “Could they not tell us in advance, so that we would not have wasted our time?” an angry professor said. “They are like that. That day there were only 8 students out of 180 for the Director's lecture” said the attendant. “We spent our own money on this. Now that is also lost” said another professor. “And Sir went to Lamingtom road to buy the web camera himself! Can't they understand” said an associate professor. “We are going to be their examiners. Let us be properly strict with them during the exam” suggested a senior professor. “I know that will not happen. The country needs doctors. So all examiners pass almost all the students, unless the students don't appear for the theory exam or keep their mouths shut during the viva. The people's health seems to be OK despite doctors of such quality. So what does it matter anyway?” said a cynic. “We will cancel the program. I will write to the director and inform him about the response to his wonderful idea. We will let the students learn such things only during their clinical postings in future, and if they don't attend that time, so be it” I concluded.