Modesty is the Best Policy

Sure, honesty is good and all but I think modesty is important too. Take, for example, two sixth year medical students I recently encountered. The first is my NS physiology demonstrator. The second is Big Dickhead, the person who chaperoned us at Freo Hospital for our cardiovascular ward visit. Two very different people.

I like my NS physiology demonstrator. A lot. He's helpful, he's polite, he marks our work very timely. He has no airs or graces about him and always answers any questions we have willingly. When he noticed we all got a question wrong in our lab reports he actually went around to each group individually and explained it to them.

I hated my hospital chaperone. What a fucking asshole. The first thing he said to us? "If you have any questions about sixth year or WAMMS come talk to me. I'm VP of WAMMS." Holy shit. Over and over again, "I'm VP of WAMMS." When someone forgot his title and called him secretary or something to that effect he very quickly said, "NO, VP."

I know he was judging me when I couldn't answer one of the doctor's question. When someone did actually ask a question about sixth year he spoke condescendingly, about how he's never failed a unit, about how important it is to do extracurricular stuff like him, how he's so good at time management blah blah blah. Fuck that shit.

On the other hand, my NS physiology demonstrator, when asked about sixth year, was a complete sweetheart about it. There was no condescension. It was like he was just having a chat with them rather than speaking as the older, more experienced one.

If I had a question about sixth year I would not go to Big Dickhead. I would go to my lab demonstrator. Big Dickhead would probably say, "Pfft, don't worry about it. You probably won't even get to sixth year."

J