‘Hard as Lightning, Soft as Candle Light’

The Students’ Scientific Society at the Armed Forces Medical College was set up to inculcate a scientific temper among medical students. For many years the main focus of the society was on conducting medical symposia.It was only in 2005 that under-graduate medical research received a fillip when the Young Researchers Forum was started. This was an annual event to showcase the students’ research work. Over the years, this forum has metamorphosed into one of India’s largest under-graduate medical conferences, namely, Illuminati. Since the college has been in the forefront of promoting UG medical research, there was a thought that we should take it a step further. A scientific journal to showcase their research was considered to be the next logical venture. “Praxis”is the result. This term has its origin from the Greek word “prassein” for ‘to do’. The dictionary meaning of praxis is ‘exercise or practice of an art, science or skill’ or as ‘practise as distin-guished from theory’. The Roget’s thesaurus describes it as ‘effectuation’ or implementing an idea into action or a hard theory into practise. All definitions have two terms in common and they are knowledge and practise. The two are sequential and the latter cannot come without the former. Today, praxis is required for both acquiring knowledge and practical skills. Technology has changed the process of knowledge acquisition. It is now available at the click of a button, and on your palmtop. This being so, the quantum of information ac-cessed and assimilated has also become byte-sized. The answer to a query posed is available by just accessing the appropriate search engine on the internet and typing the right key-words. The information is available in a jiffy and everywhere and whenever you want it. Trips to the library, and rifling through musty journals and ponderous note-takings are things of the past. This democratisation of knowledge has had one big fallout. The praxis of reading a full book or article has fallen by the wayside. The joy of doing so was in discovering how a scien-tist put forth his theory, presented facts and argued logically to prove his point. The apprecia-tion of the thought process is still critical for scientific reasoning. So the first challenge that teachers of medicine face today, is to get students back to reading books and monographs and not rely solely on wikipedia for medical information. Truncated attention spans and multi-ple distractions posed by information overdose on the internet will be barriers to this change. Medical textbooks will have to be rewritten to make them more readable and engaging. I was reading a retelling of the Mahabharatha a few years ago and was amused to note that the author had thoughtfully provided bulleted points at the end of each chapter. This may be the writing on the wall for us to follow. The other challenge in medical education today is making our graduates ‘skilled and competent’. Bedside clinics should not be the only means for practical training. Simulator-based training has a great potential and will appeal to a generation of youth addicted to Playstations and online gaming. Making students an integral part of the ‘medical team’ will give them a sense of belonging and will allow them to learn the practical aspects of dealing with patients. So many aspects of medical training like communicating with patients and breaking bad news can be seamlessly integrated into ward rounds. A shift to a syndromic approach based on practical reasoning rather than learning esoteric syndromes by rote is another strategy. The Medical Council of India wants medical education to be recalibrated to produce medical scientists rather than just doctors. Getting students involved in research early is a good idea. But research too requires practice. Practise in designing studies that will stand scientific scrutiny and in meticulous data recording. In short, medicine is like music or any art form requiring constant reiteration and revisions.Aficionados of contemporary jazz will be familiar with the song ’Music of the night’ from the famous musical Phantom of the Opera. The phantom refers to his music as ‘hard as lightning, soft as candle light’. Our education should be such that our doctors are hard with facts and practical skills which they can marshal at the speed of lightning and execute with a softness that the art of medicine demands. The editorial team of “Praxis” has tried to incorporate all these three aspects of medical education into this journal. Review articles, clinical approaches presented as flash cards, and original research work by students have all been incorporated in this journal. It is hoped that just like the Young Researchers Forum, Praxis too will evolve into something substantial with gravitas and momentum. ‘Hard as Lightning, Soft as Candle Light’EDITORIAL