Bereavement must not be an excuse for lowering standards

Editor - Having read Navin Chohan's very moving account of his own and his mother's suffering,¹ I am somewhat mystified by his comments. What exactly was he expecting from his medical school? I get the impression that while he was writing his account, he was unable to look at the whole picture in perspective. Of course we all need sympathy for bereavement, but his expectations from his medical school were excessive. To expect the medical school to "lower"² the threshold for qualification as a doctor because of bereavement cannot be in the public's interest. Doctors facing bereavement on the scale of Chohan's should really take time off medicine (employers call this "compassionate leave"). To practise medicine as well as to be as distraught, as Chohan understandably was, is, at its worst, dangerous. Doctors in such a mental state are unsafe. This is the kind of behaviour that the powers that be are trying to change.

He also criticises his senior tutor. But the tutor did as much as he possibly could, and even gave Chohan contacts for counselling. His criticism for being made to do "extra ward work," presumably to make up for lost time, was grossly unfair. Aren't his future patients entitled to a doctor who has achieved satisfactory experience as an undergraduate? His criticism of his medical school and consultants was also unfair as the "support" and "guidance" seemed to me to be adequately provided by his senior tutor.

Bereavement must never be used as an excuse for lowering standards because if this happens, heaven forbid, the unfortunate victim may be Chohan himself.

Charles Umesi, second year medical student, University of Aberdeen
Email: u04cu@abdn.ac.uk


studentBMJ 2000;08:303-346 September ISSN 0966-6494

1. Chohan N. Hard times. studentBMJ 2000;8:257.
2. This is my own word; it was not used in Chohan's article.