I study to pass my exams... do you have a problem with that?

One of my colleagues recently made a comment about how she looks down on / despises / has no respect for medical students who study just to pass their exams and not retain the information after that.

No offence was meant but i felt her disdain wash over me.

I definitely got annoyed with her, because i'm one of those people who are lucky to retain 50% of the information i studied during the exam period.

Firstly, which medical student actually hopes or wishes that they will forget all the knowledge they have studied? Every single one of them expresses regret that their brains doesn't seem to have the capacity to hold it in after pouring all the knowledge out during the exams.

Secondly, sure all medical students have to be smart to get into med school, but not all of us are over-achieving, marathon-running, charity-giving supermen/women who do not have boy/girlfriends/husbands/wives/children and other commitments to attend to.

Thirdly, who is she to make that comment when she has failed a few exams in the past and has done badly enough to elect to repeat an entire year so that she can get better grades this time round? And this is at the expense of an extra 20 Grand to our existing 30 Grand tuition fees! Selfish spoiled brat who doesn't know the value of money because she has never worked for a single penny in her life!

I really wanted to say to her "Is that your excuse for repeating the year?".

But i kept my mouth shut. Raising arguments with conceited, arrogant individuals with unduely inflated egos are pointless. They are not worth rationalising with. Although i know that Lai will be very tempted to burst their ego in these kinda situations.

Of course it's obvious to see that i take such a big offence to a small comment because i have inadequacies in this aspect. I'm not denying it. But for someone like her who is not qualified to make such a comment, i couldn't stomach not complaining about it.

Someone during my paeds rotation at VHC asked about the developmental milestone when kids learn to be socially tactful. Obviously, some people never learn it.