A proud Ahannaya Prince gives two thumbs up, after receiving his white coat from Dr. Vishal Saxena.
The American University of Barbados (AUB) School of Medicine is committed to producing students not only with strong medical skills, but who are critical thinkers.
So says Dr. Sam Suhail, Dean of Clinical Sciences at the AUB. He made the comments while speaking at the 2017 White Coat Ceremony, held yesterday morning at the school’s headquarters in Wildey, where students who have satisfied the requirements to embark on studies for their medical careers were presented with their white coats. In that vein, he said one of AUB’s long term strategic plans is to develop clinical simulation rooms to support the development of critical thinking skills and to help students to learn very early on how to relate to their patients. Moreover, he said they are working on a framework to support the standing of their medical students.
“Ultimately that is what makes a great institution great – a medical institution graduating medical students that stand for the true competencies and that reflect on the nobility I mentioned earlier,” he said.
Dr. Suhail said it is important that student doctors think critically about patient management, patient diagnosis and the relationship between them and the patients. He said this is not something that only AUB is doing, as it has been the focus of many medical schools over the last decade.
“This is a noble profession and you as graduates of the White Coat Ceremony need to carry the nobility with you. Beyond the finite description of what it is to be a physician, lies an infinite magnitude of possibilities for realising the improvement to the human condition. What the patient seeks goes much beyond what the white coat represents. Through the touch of human compassion and the breath of unfolding optimism and hope, your actions and your
responsibilities become the compass for improving not just the physical body mechanisms but the human spirit,” he said.
He made the point as he noted that too many student doctors have the knowledge, can recall the information, diagnostic procedures, or clinical procedures, but they lack that “metaphysical connection” that has to exist between the
patient and the physician. “That has to be initiated by you; that cannot be initiated by the patient,” he said. (JRT)