Abstract
To the editor,
We read with interest Deahl’s article on selecting the ‘right’ candidates for medical school, where he rightly pointed out that bringing on board students who are not suited for this career will have downstream repercussions in terms of poor job satisfaction, workforce retention, quality of patient care and wastage of training resources. 1 While we agree with the importance of utilising holistic, objective and real-time metrics to assess candidates based on authentic attributes, we also wish to highlight an often overlooked responsibility of the medical fraternity and society at large to ensure that our aspiring, young medics are able to really make an informed and uncoerced decision to join the profession based on real interests and aptitudes.
In our view, many aspiring medics are unfortunately not truly aware of the real-world challenges and gruelling nature of clinical training, which is why many fight ‘tooth and nail’ to enter into medicine only to call it quits several years later. 2 To inculcate awareness and realistic expectations of the medical profession, candid sharing and near-peer job shadowing programmes are certainly necessary to help aspiring medics gain a better sense of the real demands of clinical work (e.g. long hours with night shifts/overnight calls, multi-tasking with frequent interruptions, manpower/time/resource constraints, handling medical emergencies, difficult/complex situations and managing emotions/uncertainty). 2 On the other hand, at a societal level, we need to inculcate the right values and mindset in our future generation, which starts by averting over-glorification of the medical career and perpetuation of misleading stereotypes/unrealistic caricatures of doctors. For many years, mainstream media/medical dramas have often portrayed doctors as having exceptional knowledge, character, prestige, fame and social appeal. 3 Instead, realistic programmes such as the ‘Confessions of a Junior Doctor’ would be better able to provide accurate insights into working lives of trainee physicians (G. O’Donovan, The Telegraph, 19 April 2017).