"There is a very instructive story about one of the greatest of the Mohammedan scholars, Al-Ghazzali, who lived in the tenth century. He had been to the great university of Ray in Persia and, in his four years in the university, he had studied all the courses - philosophy, metaphysics, mathematics - and everything that could be learnt there. He was on his way back to his native town, hoping to make a career for himself, and, being a poor student, he attached himself - as an individual traveller would have had to do - to a caravan. As they were travelling along a set of Bedouins attacked the caravan and robbed them of everything. Al-Ghazzali had kept all his course notes in a little leather bag which was about all he had, and they took that too. So he went to the Bedouin chief, caught his stirrups and begged him to return this bag, saying that it was of no use to the Bedouins who could not read and that it was the fruit of his four-year learning at the university. The Bedouin cheif threw the bag at him and said, 'I thought you went to the university to learn, not to take notes.' Al-Ghazzali was very was struck with this and went back to the university for a further four years, taking no notes at all but really thinking about it all to such good purpose that he became the leading Mohammedan philosopher."
From the book, The Extension of Man -- The History of Physics before the Modern Age, by J.D. Bernal. M.I.T. Press. 1972. P. 110-111.
At about the time I read The Extension of Man above, I also read a number of
medical student story books. Many incidents I read about still remain in my memory.
Here is one of them, from Getting Better - A Medical Student's Story,
by Kenneth Klein, M.D:
This incident took place during the middle of Ken's second year at Harvard Medical
School.
Up until this moment his medical education was almost entirely classroom work -- intense
learning, memorization, studying. So far his only direct experience with anything
like
a patient had been disecting cadavers in anatomy lab and visting a morgue during the
first year. He was feeling more and more remote from the real world -- more like he
was playing a doctor than being one. In between intense studying, he
wondered to himself and to his girlfriend if he really wanted to be a doctor.
It is winter in Boston. And now
all of a sudden he is starting Surgery Lab.
In this lab he will operate, for real, for the first time.
In the evenings my homework was tying knots. It became almost a nervous tic; I was continuously fiddling with knots on the arms of chairs, on doorknobs, on (his girlfriend) Phyllis's fingers. Lengths of rope and nylon suture material hung everywhere, tinsel for a surgical Christmas.
When we had all earned our knot-tying merit badges we were ready to operate. Surgery took place in the animal research building of one of the hospitals. We worked in a big room with five or six surgery stations, each with its little operating table, overhead light, and anesthesia equipment. Four students took turns assuming each of the positions on the operating table: scrub nurse, anesthesiologist, assistant surgeon, and surgeon. We were going to learn how to operate on dogs.
When we came in for the first day of surgery we found the animals had already been set up by the lab technicians. Our patient, a black and white mongrel, lay belly-up on the steel table, strapped in place. An IV was running into a vein in the left front paw and an endotracheal tube protruded from his mouth. With the help from Dr. Samuelson, we hooked up the tube to the respirator and deepened the anesthesia. After the surgeon's assistant shaved the abdomen, the anesthesiologist gave the go-ahead. Then as scrub nurse, I handed the scalpel to the surgeon, self-consciously re-enacting dozens of operating room scenes from TV and the movies.
Our junior Ben Casey poised the knife over the smooth-skinned belly and prepared to cut. But he hesitated. Cutting living flesh is very different from cutting dead, chemical-soaked cadaver tissue, and even that's hard enough. He wasn't able to bring himself to do more than nick the skin. Finally he asked Dr. Samuelson for help. "I don't remember where I'm supposed to cut," he lied. The real surgeon took the scalpel and plunged it into the dog's abdomen, slicing a deep bloody incision eight inches long. The entire operating team winced. "Do it like you mean it," Dr. Samuelson said. "Remember, it doesn't hurt the mutt -- that's what anesthesia is for."
From the book, Getting Better - A Medical Student's Story, by Kenneth Klein, M.D. Little Brown and Company. 1981. P. 76-77. PS - Dr. Klein, thank you for writing me.
This is a quote I like from Marston Bates, from his book, The Nature of Natural History, (1950):
"All children are curious and I wonder by what process this trait becomes developed in some and suppressed in others. I suspect again that schools and colleges help in the suppression insofar as they meet curiosity by giving the answers, rather than by some method that leads from narrower questions to broader questions. It is hard to satisfy the curiosity of a child, and even harder to satisfy the curiosity of a scientist, and methods that meet curiosity with satisfaction are thus not apt to foster the development of the child into the scientist. I don't advocate turning all children into professional scientists, although I think there would be advantages if all adults retained something of the questioning attitude, if their curiosity were less easily satisfied by dogma, of whatever variety."
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