Things I Appreciate: Very good teachers

A very good teacher doesn’t have to work in academia: people don’t need degrees to teach. I’m going to focus my post on the learning that occurs inside of the classroom, however, for simplicity’s sake.

I have taken courses from two very good professors in college and one in medical school. From the experiences, I have found trends:

Going into the course, there are expectations, high ones. Building expectations requires myth-building, the established lore. When the name is dropped, people respond. A percentage will have negative things to say. But a general, resounding positive aura will prevail over the hours of work and anxiety that follow the class. Students feel overwhelmed by newfound naivety. But everyone else feels the same way, so it’s okay to an extent. And the professor is understanding and knows what the students are feeling: they’ve been there too; they keep on pushing. The expectations are real and are not fulfilled. A lot is learned, but there is always more. The learning continues after the class so that when nostalgia calls, the student thinks about how on point they would be if they sat down on the class today. That’s what a really good professor does.

Things I Appreciate: Words

Medical school has brought an appreciation for words. For example, I can appreciate the word “appreciate.” The word is thrown around so much, almost making it cliché, yet it continues to carry import. Appreciate implies complexity, often an observation without the knowledge of mechanism. The word is a lame attempt to describe something that we can't, a limit. From one word a sentiment of what it is like to be human explodes. At the same time, medicine (and science and any other field) tries to collapse a myriad of descriptors into neat packages. Consider the words “septic shock.” The words provides parameters of different variables that paint a clear picture of Shit. Words like septic shock allow for effective communication, especially when presenting. Things get spicy, though, when words like appreciate and septic shock, that expand and condense coexist: appreciable septic shock: Oh-Shit.

The Things I Appreciate in Medical School Series

Stay tuned. In the hope of posting more consistently, I've created a theme. Let's see whether I can trick myself into writing on this blog.