I never knew it was happening to me. I read many med related blogs about it. The horrors of pimping seemed so real. Within the blog Med School Hell (as an example) I found many descriptions of horrible ogre like doctors, physicians with a need to see fear and sweet from a newbie, evil nurses prowling the corridors ready to strike and see blood from incorrect answers!!! I have actually experienced this pimping to a degree.
But let me get this straight. I am not a med student (not for 10 or so more years anyhow ha-ha) and nor is my course medically oriented (like a premed course as they call it in the US). It is a science related course though and there are many subjects that I have taken that have a medical-ish/clinical-ish aspect to it. Anatomy was one of them.
However, at the time I had no clue about any of this. I never read any of these blogs that have been going on for years and years, I did not know what pimping was (in the medical aspect), ‘LOL’ to me was ‘laugh out loud’ and not ‘little old lady’, and the closest association I had to GSW was HEAD SHOT HEAD SHOT in CS. I basically chose Anatomy over ‘Calculus and scientific statistics’ because well… who wouldn’t?
Head shot! Head shot! DIE TERRORIST SCUM!
A GSW of a child from one side of the head to the other.
Note:This picture is the ‘least disturbing’ when searching for “gunshot wound in Google images”. Don’t say I didn’t worn ya.
Anyway when I went in my Anatomy practical classes I was like the chubby kid in the candy shop. I have never seen a cadaver before in my life (and when I first heard of this I actually thought of fish eggs) and everything was new to me. The green gown/dress attire of clothing was a bit strange but apart from that it was an incredible learning experience. It is one thing to listen to a lecturer all day talk about the flexors of the thigh, it is another thing to see the actual muscles being pulled like pulleys and producing actual flexion. Ditto for all the nerve innervation, blood supply etc. Thinking about it some more, this theory vs practical applications applies to more than just anatomy class but anyway back to the story…
Hence after poking through the cadavers and hearing a bit of a spiel from the demonstrator about this muscle and that nerve becoming into that nerve and that opening and that space etc, the head demonstrator came in. The questions commenced. Again I (and I think a lot of other people in my class) had no idea of this ‘pimping’ aspect and instead just called it the ’gee that guy asked a lot of fricken questions!!’ after the prac. It was difficult and many times I got questions wrong and called an artery a vein and other silly mistakes which made me feel and look like a tool. He would go on discussing the anatomy some more and as we were all in a circle he would always go clockwise and begin to ask questions one at a time pointing to a structure and so forth. We were all nervous as hell and were all praying for the easy ‘what structure is this – while pointing to a muscle’ question.
Gluteus maximus. Tell me that’s not the name of a Roman general that has slain 600 men with his bare hands?
This went on for an entire year. Over time our head demonstrator gauged the questions and began to know many of us in what our personality is (i.e do we like answering questions, do we have a clue, are we clueless) and he fitted those questions accordingly. In the end though, after being asked more questions in that subject alone than in my entire undergrad degree: I have to say it wasn’t too bad. I mean sure, no one likes to look like an idiot in front of other people, but that’s life and people look like idiots all the time. You do not need a daily dose of YouTube to realize that. I suppose this entire pimping thing is what you make it. A me vs them or a well OK let’s try and learn some things.
Naive much? Maybe… From what I have experienced though it wasn’t the end of the world.
Stay tuned…
