Neoachievers

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Some students are eager to get ahead of the pack

You must know the feeling. It's the middle of the fourth year, one year to go and job applications are on the horizon; life couldn't be better. This is when it happens, the phenomenon known only to those who work in and around the medical school; the attack of the neoachievers.

It seems that by some extraordinary coincidence, most medical students have a propensity to discover their passion for charity work and their burning desire to better the state of the medical school right around the time when CVs are due for preregistration house jobs. I suspect that this gushing enthusiasm will reach a peak around October time and rapidly diminish thereafter, but I can't think why.

I find myself overwhelmed by medical student hyperactivity disorder (MSHD). Attending daily clinics and lectures I am constantly harassed by those on the hunt for the latest CV filler. Questionnaires based on my views about the new medical curriculum, donation pleas for various opportunistic charity events, and invitations to join every society under the sun, ranging from the Sudoku Society to the Obi-Wan Kenobi Society. I've seen it all. Maybe I should form a society. I'd probably call it the Let's Not Kid Ourselves—We Don't Believe in Anything Society, or perhaps the Obnoxious Hypocritical Opportunists' Society. Either way, I would be the unelected chairman and reference to it would rapidly appear on my revised CV.

Medics today are living in a climate of fear. Fear brought about by the unknown. I am worried about the new job application procedure, and it seems rightly so. Anyone would get anxious if the system by which they will be applying for jobs for the next two years was explained to them in a series of comical, ridiculously coordinated question and answer sessions, the only result of which was both parties getting more confused. But I am even more concerned at how the medics have responded; with dastardly resumé cultivating exploits and hidden agendas. How will the genuine extracurricular activities and achievements be separated from the bogus ones? The answer is that they won't. Instead, the application procedure will turn into a grand trumpet blowing contest with an increasingly hit and miss outcome.

What can we do about it? Nothing. So I think we should all just calm down, put some thought into what we're doing, and consider our reasons for doing so. A bunch of half cocked societies and revoltingly opportune charity drives aren't helping anyone. They are however bolstering the already bloated CV's of our neoachiever colleagues. So please, let us not take such a credulous view of everything presented to us around the medical school. Instead of selfishly lobbying for our own personal gain, how about we all lobby for greater lucidity, structure and support for our future as doctors. Who else is going to do it?