It’s five minutes till midnight and a page-wide banner coruscates across the BBC homepage proclaiming “Test your morality: Discover your personal dimensions of morality.” Despite having a case presentation for my consultant due the next day which I hadn’t yet started, I decided this was a voyage of self-discovery which couldn’t wait; I had read that it would take 25 minutes but this was a small price to pay for the lifetime of enlightenment this carefully engineered banner assured me would ensue.
The next morning we stood in the surgical theatre observing our consultant finish off the morning list of procedures. Hair sprouted from his ears like withering anemones, his stern eyes fixed constantly on the procedure, incongruous with his short, jester-like constitution. As he ordered his registrar to suture shut the incision and took off his bloodied scrubs, my mind had already wandered out the door and was headed towards the hospital canteen. The consultant walked past us pointing at the solitary computer in theatre and said with the characteristic concision of a surgeon “Ok, presentations, go,” I saw my colleagues’ mouths separate a little, contemplating protest, we were scheduled to present late afternoon but nevertheless I was nudged forward to begin. Around six slides in, a wry smile spread across his face, it was the smile of recognition with a tinge of disgust, at the poorly tailored presentation and slowly his eyes began to loosen and stare straight through the monitor, a scalding excoriation brewing as I continued. Without warning and in a fit of pique, he began to dismantle the presentation with vexatious phlegm, careful to paste over any glaringly obvious malicious intent with a demure sigh and a longing hand gesture. He demanded that the presentation be repeated at our next scheduled meeting, and moved on. At the beginning of the year we had been told not to take humiliation personally, as it was inevitable from such a highly charged, hierarchical workplace structure, but as I stood there vacant eyed, waiting for my colleagues to complete their polished presentations, it was a profound moment of realisation that this career will be relentlessly unforgiving to those who choose to treat it as a mistress.
University is a forge in which to sculpt a variety of tools to add to our burgeoning metaphorical toolbox, to increase our preparedness for challenges we are likely to face in the real world; procrastination is the wooden spoon being lovingly lathed by students across the country, some even taking time to laboriously carve out intricacies into the handle. In this lifelong race to cerebralise vast text books, an obsidian work ethic is a pre-requisite to success; it requires a steadfast and unfaltering commitment coupled with an inexorable sense of purpose. On such a course, where many agree that a Calvinistic work ethic is rewarded more than intellectual brilliance, though the latter is of course beneficial, one would presume that most participants would not display a superlative proclivity for procrastination, yet having spent nearly three years studying medicine it is clear to see that pathological procrastination amongst medical students is rife, and is slowly poisoning otherwise capable minds from reaching full potential.
When I went for my medical school interview, I had rehearsed a repulsively sterile answer along the lines of, “I look forward to a lifetime of learning, and a career in medicine is one which will satisfy my inquisitive nature,” of course I was lying through my carefully flossed teeth, but it is precisely because of the fact that medicine is one of the few degree choices which truly forms a lifelong commitment, that the months seem more expendable than they actually are, and this is perhaps why the idea of laying idle at the promise of making up for it later can be so alluring. Procrastination is the parasite of excellence, which is best addressed early before it is allowed to germinate and enisle you to a lifetime of mediocrity; if brilliance is your ultimate goal, having a lifetime to master your craft must never be an excuse to delay but rather become an opportunity to excel that little bit further, regardless of the diminishing returns.
