Posted by alexandra_k on March 27, 2015, at 20:45:49
In reply to Re: i think 'suits' got better » ClearSkies, posted by alexandra_k on March 27, 2015, at 20:02:07
back to this, again...
i suppose it is important to think about how quickly things have changed. 2nd or 3rd generation immigrants are what many of the white people are around here. and apprarently family size does reduce... much of the large family is coming from very recent pacific island immigration. the mushroom childbearing / raising strategy. throw your seeds / progeny to the wind and see how many survive to look after you...
you have communities who think they might get a doctor. if they have... enough of them. somehow having 13 kids, or whatever, and eventually they'll happen to throw out a good doctor or a lawyer or whatever. and that one will, of course, voluntarily return to the community that dragged them up and look after them. mmm hmm.
and 'equity' considerations... apparently... we should take the best of them. because... apparently they are the ones who are most likely to do it. nobody else is going to, that's for sure. even the ones who are picked to do it... the chances that they will bail... only... you have to work for the government over here on graduation... and looks like there might be a bit of a 'equity people vs the rest of them' when it comes to med school intake... the supposed 'graduate student tsunami' of people they are dragging through... the ones who are supposed to go and work (for free, or just-abouts) in rural communities. as GPs... or as... whatever. mostly managing teams of 'allied health' 'professionals'. because, lets face it, one doesn't need to talk to a doctor to be told that it would be a good idea to get a little exercise, quit smoking, and maybe start growing your own food instead of living off macdonalds.
anyway... i might have a bit of a harder time of it insofar as i don't really get equity considerations in my favor. for some reason... they aren't considering last secondary school attended or whatever with respect to socio-economic. they also aren't considering disability. so... i do have to get better grades than most of the health sci people... probably... hard to say so much discretion around the interview, to be honest. i'll probably be okay... but i guess i do feel...
i'm kinda pissed off that some people spawn as many as they can and they don't even bother to even try just a little bit to look after any of them much of the time... and so they... what? seem to expect that society will raise them in the name of 'equity'? of course it isn't fair to the kids... i guess... that's the thing, really. to realise that the kids... well... how much allegance are they going to feel to people who spawned them? their kids are probably... most probably going to want to do a better job of it... or something... i don't know...
population health... is horrible. i really hate the classes in that that i have. mostly because... they seem to be trying to feed us values more than actual information or tools of critical thinking to help us come to a well reasoned making up of our own mind. e.g., 'butter is bad'. and 'we need to grow our population'. and 'free trade is bad' and so on... it is hard for me to communicate with social science-y stuff when the people don't have first year philosophy (critical reasoning together with logic) behind them. ambiguities and fallacies all over the show... blunt assertion... it's a real mess... but... i suppose it is less time consuming / more possible for me to do okay in than physics turned out to be...
it is horrible because it is so dehumanising. i don't get that from biosci the same way.. the dissection etc. there is some kind of reference for people and aesthetic... but in population health... it sseems really very dehumanising. the value of a life... very utilitarian in the 'sacrifice the individual for the majority'. then them trying to say that equity is somehow consistent since equity is an overall objective out of 'fairness'.
and i get angry...
they let in far too many people into this year. at least 1/3 of them really don't have a hope. i mean... medicine is not something that they would want to do if they even understood what it was about. i mean... people who hate going to class, who think the material is boring, who only go to sit with their friends... people who will happily chat all the way through the lecture... there seems to be this thing of how it isn't hurting anyone to open the doors to more and more and more and more people... only it is. the people who actually want to learn... don't get to because of all the freaking people who don't even know what the crowd is doing they are too busy trying to huddle in the middle of it.
lots of people seem attracted to health because they want to be looked after. there is a big huddle outside starting from about 1/2 an hour before lectures. really young... kids, basically. they sort of... mill about there all day. a big mess of them. screaming out for people to... look after them, i guess.
and the actual people who actually have an actual chance are off in the library or whatever...
but you have to not get killed by the herd...
sigh.
some of the best of them will get into nursing. look after their communities. we tell them that there are jobs in that... only... there aren't. not for people fresh out. they'll end up going home and working for free... looking after their people. at least they'll know to smoke outside etc.
we have been learning about different migration patterns in cell populations in embryos... ICM / trophoblast differentiation... seems that exposure to the outside world inhibits an enzyme which results in a cell producing trophoblasts... and being surrounded by other cells means the enzyme is expressed and cells produce ICM cells...
not exactly population-dependent... but sorta... what you do is sorta determined by what your neighbours are...
and then salt and pepper differentiation that occurs later... some of the cells produce x and some of them produce y and then the x cells all migrate someplace together and the y cells migrate someplace together.
that salt and pepper migration... i think that is what the aim is with equity... that things like... stuff about your parents or... your environment... or whatever... that you are just free to be you and to go where is best for you and to be the best you you can be with people who are good for you.
i think... they don't get so very much salt and pepper out of this year (with respect to grade distribution / equity)... but that is the ideal of it... to give people the opportunity... in some sense of opportunity.
i just... i'm thinking about the netball... i was watching it... they are showing sports in the university gym now - instead of x rated airbrushed music videos by people with no talent... - and it is great. really inspiring. watching the female 7's athletes etc etc... anyway... they have kids at part of it... they slap their hands as they walk out or they hand the ref the ball to start the game, or whatever. it is meant to be inspiring for them etc. and you see... some of the kids are just in heaven... they really really really really really appreciate what a big deal / privaledge it is for them to get to do that... and others of them... just seem dead, somehow. not that into it. don't care. don't really want to be there... so.. what's the point in giving them the opportunity / taking places away from other people who work their *SS OFF and who really erallyr eally really really really really want it... i don't quite get it.
there are lots of kids who... there parents sent them over here to boarding school from the start of high school. we have the cheapest education in the developed world. since we're right at the bottom of the whole developed thing, and all... anyway... a lot has been invested in these kids... i feel a bit sick inside for some of them... some of them don't really want to do med... but some of them really really do. and it does break my heart that some of them won't get to do something that they really want and have really worked very hard for... because some community wants a doctor even though the people in that community keep on spawning them with no care of concern for raising them properly at all.
grr.
i guess... the idea is that the increase in the number of places is supposed to be about that. so... no less places for 'traditional' applicants. though it is probably more common now that people are sending their kids here rather than aussie etc. with the way the economy has gone etc...
i'm just very aware that what is good for populations is often not what is good for me. group work... thus far... given that we are in a noisy group work environment i don't do as well on the individual portion (i can't concentrate on the problems with noisy people). but compared to having a quiet place to do the work myself... vs what the group consensus is... i'm better off working by myself.
they are pushing this whole 'embedded in your community' thing. stuff on news-type programs about getting to know your neighbours etc. the idea is, of course, that people should try and get free help from their community before turning to social services that are expensive for the country. the kids we tell to 'get in there! get in there!' i guess mostly... those are the kids what will likely die if they aren't in there...
then there's the kids hiding round the periphery... shuddering at the masses...
i just... some people seem sort of... happy... to live in a big herd like that. animals all huddled together. they actually seem sort of happy that way. well... then isn't the cost of some of that that you aren't going to throw out one who can design a sewerage system for y'all etc? isn't that just... life? i mean... back... back before the white people came... what were y'all doing? some people want to get back to that... and that is fair enough. give them back the freaking land that ya stole.. help them get back some of those skills they had in looking after it etc.. but if you want to live in a big herd like that... you probably aren't going to pop out one who is at the frontier of western medicine...
but, lets face it, most of them couldn't tell the difference between someone who was... and a nurse near the bottom of their class. so...
groan.
i do feel kinda caught between two worlds... i guess... i had maaori carers from 14-16. when i finally got away from mother... and they helped me get a government benefit to live independently at 16. and... they weren't fabulous... they didn't get me in a whole bunch of ways... but... they really were... good enough. yeah. and so that kinda does make me maaori... sorta. kinda. and most of those kids feel caught... and it's the old people hanging on... for their kids to come back home and look after them. yeah.
it is hard.
i think population health upsets me mostly because... i have such high hopes of it. very high expectations. and then... to see things like a segregated bus service (because the students can suffer overcrowded conditions with less complaining). and i just feel... angry. i think probably many of the very worst injustices of all are done in the name of equity. like how many people are killed in the name of freedom...
sigh.
poster:alexandra_k
thread:1076978
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20150214/msgs/1077875.html