Media reports brought home the cruelty of some students in a famed medical college in south India. The news of four students who tortured and killed a monkey came with a reminder of two medical students who recently lobbed off a puppy from atop a building.
These two incidents are sure to shock the people because the perpetrators aspired to a profession known to be synonymous with care and compassion.
Only six among the thousands of medical students in India are accused of such cruelty. This by no means shows a pattern.
However, these incidents force us to raise some questions related to the quality of medical education.
If you were to judge by the incredulous reactions to the incidents of cruelty, society still expects succor from doctors despite the allegations that the profession has been inhumanely commercialized.
That the society expects doctors to be kind is reason enough to be optimistic.
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It is time to examine if today’s medical education system has anything to train future doctors the way the society wants them to be?
We all know that medical students are not selected for their interests and aptitudes. Many other unhealthy interests come into play in the selection of medical students.
Whatever it be, medical colleges could produce a group of professionals with love of their fellow beings if medical students are trained in a way which encourages them to be humane and kind. Unfortunately, that does not happen.
Many of the medical students start their studies with a heightened sense of social awareness.
They are inspired by the opportunities to be of some help to the people around them.
However, after five years of medical studies, they are transformed into mere technicians who weigh in only commercial interests.
It may be an uneasy thought but there is something in our medical colleges that can create bad guys out of anyone.
Modern science no longer thinks that care, kindness and compassion to fellow beings are natural qualities.
These humane qualities can be nurtured through training. Many medical colleges in Western countries have made such training a part of the curriculum.
Medical students who had got a chance to know the emotional and social background of the patients become better doctors with humane attitudes and compassionate interventions, we have learnt from our experience in palliative care.
I do not think that the killing of a monkey by a group of medical students should send shockwaves in society. At the same time, we have to realize that a compassionate doctor is something of an accident in today’s education system.
(The writer is a co-chairman of the World Health Organization’s expert committee for palliative care.)
