What can we learn from professional sport?

I watched with interest a BBC programme tonight on the detrimental effect of professionalism on elite sportsmen and it got me thinking about how it could also apply to doctors.

Professional athletes today have become more efficient, more driven and harder trained, with more facilities at their disposal than ever before in history. Some people spend their lives analysing sport, the perfect way to swing a tennis racket or golf club and the ultimate training regimes. Much of the time this is what drives people to the top to be the best, with every minute of every day fit for a specific purpose. But is this a damaging way to the top? Can this be sustained?

Some of the best sportsmen in modern day, are the ones who still look like they’re enjoying themselves. The ones who are happy with what they do and satisfied with their lives. For example I look at Roger Federer, Usain Bolt and Lionel Messi, athletes who still look like they keep some of that fun they had when they played as kids, before they signed their professional contracts, sponsorship deals and so on and so forth. Athletes who still lead healthy lives off the pitch, and I have no doubt, take time to get away from the game from time to time.

Compare these players to the ones we’ve seen fall from grace in recent times due to their disharmony off the pitch. The Wayne Rooneys and Tiger Woods. There can be no denying that their performance has been affected by things which have happened off the court. Tiger Woods is someone who looks as if his drive and obsessively hard-working approach has ultimately led to his divorce away from golf, and now his poor form on the course. Yes, he was one of the greatest golfers in history, but I doubt he will ever recover fully from the events of the past 12 months. People most often quote the astronomical salaries and immense pressures on England’s footballers as the reason for their failings in the world cup this year. There was never any doubt about the talent on the pitch, but at not one moment did the players look like they were enjoying themselves.

I think that this theory can be applied to medicine as well. It is often said that we are all our harshest critics, but maybe it’s important to take a step back from time to time. A happy doctor is a good doctor, we don’t have to be perfectionists to be good at what we do. I feel that the key to avoiding burnout is taking regular breaks from medicine from time to time, and keeping other interests away from the hospital wards. Medicine is a long, hard career and to make it all the way, this is the kind of doctor I will aspire to be on graduating from medical school next year.

Sunday 26th September

Pregnant women recreating Charles Ebbet's iconic photo 'New York Construction Workers Lunching on a Crossbeam'. The aim of the photo was help highlight the high rates of mortality amongst pregnant women who die every year in developing countries.

The topic which everyone is talking about at the moment amongst the 5th year medical students is that of job applications and securing a place on the UK Foundation Programme after graduation. According to early estimates it seems as if this year there is going to be a shortfall in places for the first time. The result of telling applicants this information is that people seem to be very anxious all of a sudden about what was previously considered a given, that on graduating from medicine all doctors would have a job. There have been angry letters from concerned students, reassurances from the professional bodies such as the BMA and lots of conversations had about this years applications process.

The application form is relatively simple, students apply to a foundation school eg ‘Scotland’, and then jobs within the region to which they apply. The application forms are scored out of 100, based on a combination of academic competencies and ‘essay-based questions’. These questions make up half of the application and answering the questions well is extremely important. I’m pretty sure though that given enough time and enough thought, it should be possible to score well on these questions.

Although the prospect of having unemployed doctors at the end of their medical training seems like a total waste of talent and money, the situation is the same for many UK university graduates at the current time and relatively, medical students are still lucky in the sense that most graduates from medicine will still have jobs in 2011. Primary school teachers have to put of with competition ratios in the region of 17 applicants per job and people are having to leave the UK to find work. It will be interesting come November this year to find out the exact number of applicants and whether or not there will be a shortfall in job numbers, but until then all I can do is take as much time and care as possible to fill in the application form and score highly on the essay based questions.

A Taste of Socialism in Cuba

I don't think I quite knew what I was getting myself in for by travelling to Cuba. I had an idea in my mind about what to expect. A spanish speaking country steeped in fascinating history and culture, distinctly different from the many of the countries around it. In truth, visiting Cuba is like going back in time about 50 years. It is quite refreshing that there is such a lack of Western culture and influence in the country. The streets are still crawling with classic US cars, many of the buildings have a distinct resemblance to how I would imagine the former soviet union to have looked like and the country is filled with tributes to the men who have helped develop Cuba into the country that it is today. In fact, the likes of Fidel Castro and Che Guevara are seemingly worshipped as Gods.

Cuba is still listed by the UK Foreign Office as a country of 'concern'. There are remain hundreds of political prisoners in Cuba and it is still possible to be thrown behind bars for opposing the communist regime. International human rights organisations such as Amnesty International are not permitted access to Cuba. And yet it seems such a contradiction that Cuba has one of the best medical health care systems in the world. Statistically there are more doctors in Cuba than there are in the whole of Africa. Cuban actually exports doctors in exchange for food and economic benefits from neighbouring countries such as Venezuela, the oil rich country with which is Cuba's largest trading partner.

I was surprised when I visited Cuba by the level to which the country is shut off from the western world. I witnessed thousands of students arrange at the University of Havana to hear Fidel Castro make his first public speech in 4 years, the majority of content of which was a lecture on the 'evil' powers America and the fact that the Amercians are putting the world on the brink of a nuclear war. My experiences in Cuba have given me an insight into just how fortunate we are in the UK to have access to information and freedom of speech. The personal impact of having my bag stolen from my hotel room on my first day of arriving of course left a bad taste for the rest of the trip, but in a way it further opened my eyes to what it's like to have things taken away from you, much like the population of Cuba have had things denied from them from most of their lives.