Means to an End?

One of the things that has struck me especially whilst trailing around the country going to interviews/open days is related to this (surprisingly rational) article in the Guardian. Basically, according to Vice-Chancellors, students are doing degrees for jobs at the end rather than for love of the subject. Nowhere is this more apparent than with Medicine.

Why shouldn't people be concerned with the job at the end, many people would ask. Medicine is, after all, a vocational degree. However, whilst it is perfectly reasonable (expected, even) to be concerned with becoming a doctor, I have found it to be towards an obsession in many applicants. Pre-interview discussions frequently turn to how awesome it will be being a doctor and the like. But I would argue that these people are missing a key part of the lives they are aiming for. Five or six years of their lives will, hopefully, be spent at university, studying the human body and the effects of the world on it. To me, this seems just as exciting as life beyond this time, and should be given some consideration - the time spent at university is a sizable part of life (five plus years is hardly a short time), and should be given more consideration by people. My view is that people should study medicine because they have an interest in medicine (and hence become doctors), not because they'd like a job with good career prospects, good pay and some other positive features. Not even if they'd like to help people - that can be done in so many other ways.

I think a degree should be studied for the sake of the degree, even Medicine. Does this mean I'll end up as an academic doctor at the end of it all? I doubt it. Just a love of the subject of what I (hope to) do, as well as the job itself.

It's all in the Name

I thought I'd just quickly talk about what I named the blog (Against All Reason, for those of you too lazy to look up). The main reason would be the fact that I am actually trying to become a doctor, a career which currently enjoys media attacks, management incompetence and, of course, MMC. I do this despite not really knowing exactly why I want to do this (that's right Mr Admissions Tutor - I lied). A secondary reason for the name is the fact that reason is something I consider to be very important, and I'm liable to moan at expressions of ignorance.

And, for your pleasure, a quick moan. What idiot decided to put an off button on a keyboard? How does the slight convenience of not having to reach to the computer (which must be within reach so people can use disks and the like) make up for the suffering of those who accidently hit the off key, and proceed to have their computer end every program in front of their eyes. Jeremy Bentham wouldn't approve.

Coming up soon in the future:

• Some insight into the application process for medicine (including moaning)
• Political commentary (including moaning)
• Anything else I can be bothered to write about (including moaning)
  

Welcome to the Gates of Hell

Nothing like starting a blog with a nice touch of melodrama, I'd say. Of course, I say lots of things, and want to say even more, hence the fact that I'm starting up this little blog - I have so many things I like to moan about, and there's the inspiration of all those other blogs (the medical types, which I'll plug some links to when I figure out how to).

Anyway, a quick bit about me. I'm a Sixth Form student, with a view to reading medicine (providing I stop all this damn procrastination and get on with some work, I may even meet an offer) later this year. I have a number of interests (which I'll get round to blogging about, I'm sure), ranging from politics to philosophy (so nothing too controversial then).

I should probably mention that I overuse parentheses (and pointlessly long words), although as long as no-one reads this, I'll be fine.