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I think about perhaps publishing later a paper about this, or just entertain the subject in a conversation, or just reflect on it on my own - whatever the case is going to be, my intention is to fill this thread with everyone's experience regarding:
- the competitiveness and/or unity they experienced/are experiencing in Medical school
- the effects that it has on the individual and on the collective performance
- the effects that it has on the social dynamics
- the effects it has on sculpting the character of individuals
- anything else that you consider important
My observation about the way students act in my Medical school is that while their competitiveness often times gives them a personal profit, they do not learn anything about the importance of co-operation, team-work and even inter-human wisdom. Because later in life, as a physician, you will be constantly connected to other physicians and besides the fact that some of them are going to remember you from University, you've got to build relationships with the ones who don't know you yet and it might be difficult to change behavioral habits that you had in school for years, the individualistic mindset you developed can be smelled from a mile and it can definitely send the wrong signals to other physicians.
It's also important the way a person is competitive: if someone focuses on lifting himself up OR if someone focuses on dragging others down, sabotaging others, not giving help to others - the second type of competitiveness can actually show a lack of self-confidence in your own abilities and this is something many students don't get.
Like, if you are top-notch in a subject and someone asks you to explain him something or to help him out in getting a difficult thing he's just not understanding, you shouldn't feel threatened by that and decide to not give any help so that you feel more comfortable, because that only shows how weak you truly are and how you just don't want a strong competition, so you think that the more your schoolmates are struggling, the better for you.
Besides this, a level of competitiveness is natural and healthy, after all, it does show your level of performance and that's an important thing when you assess yourself. However, it's typically one of those things that can rapidly descent into "can't see the forest for the trees" scenario, in which you actually forget about the essence of Medicine and you get blindsided by your ego.
There are many others things that can be said, I'm eager to read what everyone thinks about this.
Have a great day !
- the competitiveness and/or unity they experienced/are experiencing in Medical school
- the effects that it has on the individual and on the collective performance
- the effects that it has on the social dynamics
- the effects it has on sculpting the character of individuals
- anything else that you consider important
My observation about the way students act in my Medical school is that while their competitiveness often times gives them a personal profit, they do not learn anything about the importance of co-operation, team-work and even inter-human wisdom. Because later in life, as a physician, you will be constantly connected to other physicians and besides the fact that some of them are going to remember you from University, you've got to build relationships with the ones who don't know you yet and it might be difficult to change behavioral habits that you had in school for years, the individualistic mindset you developed can be smelled from a mile and it can definitely send the wrong signals to other physicians.
It's also important the way a person is competitive: if someone focuses on lifting himself up OR if someone focuses on dragging others down, sabotaging others, not giving help to others - the second type of competitiveness can actually show a lack of self-confidence in your own abilities and this is something many students don't get.
Like, if you are top-notch in a subject and someone asks you to explain him something or to help him out in getting a difficult thing he's just not understanding, you shouldn't feel threatened by that and decide to not give any help so that you feel more comfortable, because that only shows how weak you truly are and how you just don't want a strong competition, so you think that the more your schoolmates are struggling, the better for you.
Besides this, a level of competitiveness is natural and healthy, after all, it does show your level of performance and that's an important thing when you assess yourself. However, it's typically one of those things that can rapidly descent into "can't see the forest for the trees" scenario, in which you actually forget about the essence of Medicine and you get blindsided by your ego.
There are many others things that can be said, I'm eager to read what everyone thinks about this.
Have a great day !
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