Im currently undertaking my elective in a large public hospital in Australia. Staying in the doctors accommodation means that Ive been meeting students from lots of other countries and other medical schools in the United Kingdom.

One question that seems to be introduced quickly at each new meeting is: “So, whats your course like?”

I always find this difficult to answer. Others can summarise their course quickly: “Problem based learning.” “Traditional.” Unfortunately Im on one of those courses that is more of a mix. “Well mostly lectures in preclinical, but it is integrated a bit....” How do I encompass that in a snappy little sentence?

Of course, asking about each others courses doesnt really have anything to do with learning the answer to the question. Medical student competitiveness inevitably rears its ugly head. The debate that ensues is, whose course is the best?

The Irish students outdo the United Kingdom because we get only two degrees but they get four. The Americans were shocked to learn that medicine is an undergraduate course throughout the whole of the British Isles. Should doctors be practising at the tender age of 23? The Aussies backed this up by pointing out that their course is postgraduate, but it had been undergraduate several years ago. The graduates produced by the new course are more mature. They should be—theyre older!

Of course, this isnt really the first time that Ive heard this argument. It began before I even entered medical school—way back in high school, when all the wannabe medical students were deciding which universities to apply to. Each medical school wanted to let us know why it was the best, and we were sucked right in.

Six years down the line, were older and wiser, and nothing has changed. What the many different types of courses establish is that medicine can be taught in many alternative ways, and, in reality, none can be proved to be better than any of the rest.