Beware of Chauffeur knowledge in Medical Education

Here is a famous story making a very important point.

Max Planck: After he won his prize, he was invited to lecture everywhere, and he had this chauffeur that drove him around to give public lectures all through Germany. And the chauffeur memorized the lecture, and so one day he said, "Gee Professor Planck, why don't you let me try it as we switch places?" And so he got up and gave the lecture. At the end of it some physicist stood up and posed a question of extreme difficulty. But the chauffeur was up to it. "Well," he said, "I'm surprised that a citizen of an advanced city like Munich is asking so elementary a question, so I'm going to ask my chauffeur to respond."
Reference : The Art of Thinking Clearly by Rolf Dobelli
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What does this story teach us, all our lives especially in today’s internet era. We are flooded with information. Some of them would appear fancy, they will speak well and their facebook pages will have followers. But trust me a Chauffeur with a well rehearsed lecture may appear like Planck, without actually having any significant depth.  Medical education especially in India is full of such Chauffeurs. Imagine a scenario today where people who have not even done MD medicine, claim to have compiled mistakes in Harrison's Textbook. Chauffeur carry their lack of knowledge with conviction. They are almost believable. But we all need to remember there are no short cuts to Plank knowledge, but that is where the treasure is. Same thing you can see happening in news channels, where some press reported seem to have an opinion in everything when it is not possible for one person to have depth on all topics of national interest, beware of such Chauffeurs and don’t base on your opinion on such publicity stunts.

‪#‎sumersethi‬