When time stood still

Yesterday, as a third year medical student, I dutifully attended my OSCE assessment stations. I can best compare this to anyone else queueing up for the biggest roller coaster at Alton Towers. The conjecture regarding what lay ahead of us a seemingly endless series of conspiracy theory and personal nemeses. As we were led upstairs to where the examination stations were situated, the feelings of escalating upwards at the start of a roller coaster ride came flooding back. As with the roller coaster ride, it was all over so quickly - nigh on three hours! If anyone was studying medicine for the purpose of financial gain at the end of it all, this is the equivalent of those Japanese TV programmes first championed by Clive James in the 1980s. These programmes were a vehicle for people to show off their unfeasible appetites for masochism on scales hitherto unthought of. We all hope of course to have performed with few enough mistakes to be deemed worthy of progression to our next year of study were we will doubtless be subjected to ever higher levels of difficulty. No, you're quite right - logic has nothing to do with it. Ironic for a group of students considered to be of above average intelligence...