Confucius School of Medicine: the way to great learning

The Christmas issue contains three people's description of their ideal medical school.

Read the descriptions:

• Renaissance School of Medicine, p 1454

• François Rabelais School of Medicine, p 1456

• Confucius School of Medicine, p 1458

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The way to great knowledge is to understand virtue … the emperor as well as an ordinary man must first develop self discipline, said Confucius—and this applies to future doctors as well

It was the last day of the semester before Christmas. I woke up in high spirits, ready for a full day of teaching, with a seminar in the morning and an outpatient consultation session in the afternoon.

As my car turned into the road leading to the Medical Faculty, a student talking on his mobile phone jumped out in front of my car. Luckily I braked without hitting him. I was sweating from the fright but he continued as if nothing had happened. I wondered how effective he would be in counselling his patients about avoiding risk taking behaviour.

I barely recovered from the shock and hurried to the seminar. I opened the door to a lecture theatre that was as noisy as the bird market in town and saw in front of me a bunch of kids chatting, laughing, shouting, eating, and running around. I had to shout to introduce our guest speaker, who then struggled to deliver her talk as students continued to chat, come in late, and go out to answer their telephones. The seminar ended and all the students rushed out before the speaker and I could get to the door. I explained that our medical school was …