Henry Ford rightly said that failure is an opportunity to start again; more intelligently. Those who recently sat the Medical and Dental Colleges Admission Test (MDCAT) and are now grumbling about what happened during the process would do well to pay attention to what Ford said, and use it as an opportunity to start again; more intelligently.
A change in perspective will help them face the reality that they had been doing the wrong thing by focusing their energies on the healthcare sector in which nearly 11,000 graduates are unemployed in the country.
Those without a post-graduation fellow-ship against their name stand nowhere. And that fellowship takes more than a decade after one has completed the five-year medical graduation. How many of us can wait that long to make a decent living in a struggling society like the one we have in Pakistan? Is it the best use of our time, resources and energies? Hardly.
It is just a game of mindset, really. The fantasy of wearing a lab coat and a stethoscope hanging around the shoulders is an image that powers many an imagination.
Those running private medical colleges and universities sell this image to lure students and their parents. With competition getting tougher and unemployment rising, medical education, honestly, is a waste of time and resources for a majority of those who apply for a seat.
With the kind of advancements that are being made in the digital world, technology will promote remote or robotic healthcare delivery within the next, say, 10 years.
Now is the time to plan one’s life in that era, especially for those belonging to middle and lower-middle classes who have to make a living and to do it as quickly as they can. Come to think of it, the MDCAT fiasco is a blessing in disguise. By taking the decision out of our hands, it has given us all an opportunity to start again; more intelligently.
HIRA NAZIR
LAHORE
