BBC THREE: Junior Doctors ... Inspirational?

Yes, and I've explained why they might seem to be doing disproportionatly well. If you can't read an argumentr, why bother responding?

1. I was talking about them as medical students, not as doctors.

2. They are from well off families, not well off themselves.

3. They are not representative of medical students.

4. They are not inspirational since none of them have overcome any barrier in particular to become doctors. This does not devalue their degree or the work that they put in, but that THEY COULD BE MORE INSPIRATIONAL IF THEY HAD HAD DIFFICULTIES.

5. The BBC has aimed this as a "lighthearted" and "heartwarming" documentary. It does not dissect issues.

6. If you can't be bothered reading my argument, shut up.

1. I was talking about them as medical students, not as doctors.

2. They are from well off families, not well off themselves.

3. They are not representative of medical students.

4. They are not inspirational since none of them have overcome any barrier in particular to become doctors. This does not devalue their degree or the work that they put in, but that THEY COULD BE MORE INSPIRATIONAL IF THEY HAD HAD DIFFICULTIES.

5. The BBC has aimed this as a "lighthearted" and "heartwarming" documentary. It does not dissect issues.

6. If you can't be bothered reading my argument, shut up.

How could you possibly know?

The irony of judging them when you don't begin to have any ****ing idea what you're talking about. You can **** off you bloody moron.

Because their profiles are on the BBC website? Because they are on a TV programme which looks at them in detail? Because, despite editing etc, people love a good inspirational story of people overcoming the odds and it would be stupid to cut this out? We heard about Katherine failing a first year exam and having to resit them, so if any were a single parent or had worked in the army all their lives or anything denoting difficulty it would be mentioned?

Has your common sense and ability to deduce information gone AWOL today?

The previous series on doctors on the BBC in the early nineties (impossible to find and watch, but there is an accompanying book for the series which is just a little bit great) did not shirk from issues of racism, sexism, family circumstance and class. Whilst this series is quite fun and I am enjoying it, it is still very lighthearted in nature and does not seek to dissect any of the issues which affect people in general, not just doctors.

See you have to be careful of reverse snobbery.

I used to have a bit (a lot) of this when I started medical school. Mainly because of my upbringing and background.

But you have no idea of the lives people lead. What if one of them has had an eating disorder? Or overcame cancer? Or lost a parent at a young age? Even if they haven't had any of those things happened you have no right to extrapolate that because they appear to have material wealth that they don't have problems.

When I have children they will be in a much more stable and affluent family than I ever was. I will be annoyed if I see them making judgments about people who appear to have less than them, but will also be weary of people writing them (and me) off as somehow less equal because we have things that they don't.

If you want to be a doctor there are going to be more people from middle class backgrounds than any other. Unless you want to alienate lots of future friends, patients and colleagues you might want to start being a more open minded.

If I want to be a doctor, I will mostly be treating people from working class backgrounds, since they have a higher chance of ill-health.

Class is not something I care about in particular, but when one small group of people are classed as "inspirational" (as per the OP and the whole point of this thread) I have to question why. I see nothing particularly inspirational about them other than they are young doctors. There is some incidence of tragedy which has already been mentioned (Lucy's sister has cystic fibrosis) but other than that there has been no mention of anything else. Mental illness, I will admit, I had not considered. It is not something that would be mentioned publicly for fear of damaging their careers, which is a shame.

Finally, the final fault lies not with the people, who can't help their lives, but with the BBC who have aired a show about the Foundation Years of a group of doctors that is not particularly informative or issue-based but is aimed at being light entertainment on BBC3. By all means, I hope they do well. But I fail to really see them as inspirational characters when the BBC won't portray them as such.

LOL

They don't have to divulge every aspect of their lives to TV you know, who knows, theres probably stuff we're not being told. Just as with the patients on the show, there are things we're not being told. Do you honestly think problems with one of the patients stopped at difficulty to cannulate? Or perhaps because they dress professionally, they have to be rich? Or maybe, their patents worked hard too? Those people will have seen some pretty horrible things in their training, arguably things 20 odd year olds shouldn't have to see. But you are not them, you wouldn't have a clue exactly what they went through to get there. Before you treat your future patients, I hope you don't think - we'll this person is a little middle class, so that means...end result, oh I don't have to treat them as well as my other patients because he has money.

You are right though, one of us has lost their ability to reason, the first law of medicine is assume nothing.

The childminder bit is probably true, but I wouldn't be so judgemental about the money thing. Don't forget that the BBC is paying for their nice house, and while some of them have a flash car etc, it doesn't mean that they were rolling in it right through med school. Plenty of med students have a lot of financial difficulties, especially with NHS bursaries.

They're all employed and living in a free house now though, so you can't really judge what university might have been like. I know we've seen a couple of them have well-off parents, but I wouldn't make too many assumptions.

How could you possibly know?

The irony of judging them when you don't begin to have any ****ing idea what you're talking about. You can **** off you bloody moron.

See you have to be careful of reverse snobbery.

I used to have a bit (a lot) of this when I started medical school. Mainly because of my upbringing and background.

But you have no idea of the lives people lead. What if one of them has had an eating disorder? Or overcame cancer? Or lost a parent at a young age? Even if they haven't had any of those things happened you have no right to extrapolate that because they appear to have material wealth that they don't have problems.

When I have children they will be in a much more stable and affluent family than I ever was. I will be annoyed if I see them making judgments about people who appear to have less than them, but will also be weary of people writing them (and me) off as somehow less equal because we have things that they don't.

If you want to be a doctor there are going to be more people from middle class backgrounds than any other. Unless you want to alienate lots of future friends, patients and colleagues you might want to start being a more open minded.