The Joy In Examinations - A Tutor's Perspective

Exam invigilation - a tryst with your days of learning

The under-graduate medical students are taking the university practical exams. It is my second year of post-graduation in community medicine. Being a PG-cum-Tutor, every day in the department has its own share of fun and learning to offer.

On the days of practical exams, I (including my post-graduate colleagues) have to come to the department by thirty minutes past eight in the morning, that is a whole thirty minutes before the usual attendance time. We help our professors in preparing the question paper and then in assorting the spotters for each day of the exam. We would then supervise the students writing the answers, which is followed by conducting the rounds of spotters. After the spotters, students pick up answer sheets labelled with the diagnosis of the cases that they would take in the medical, obstetric and pediatric wards. We allot the cases to them, and see to it that the discussion of the cases are carried out smoothly thereafter.

While all these chores take a certain level of commitment, teamwork and responsibility, what comes with the pains taken is a priceless deal of satisfaction. Three years was never too long. Those days when I was one among these students shifting positions from one spotter to the other, taking cases in the wards and waiting outside the professors' cabins for case discussion, was not a long while back. And it is this very fact that adds the icing on the cake. I don't know how frequently would one come to live at situations where the yester-years deceive in the disguise of yesterday. I would get a dose of this deja vu of colossal tension and the enormous fear of uncertainty about clearing the exam for the next four days.

In the shoes of an amateur academician, I have come to terms with the realization that the most satisfying rendezvous for an examiner would be the moment when he identifies his self, his soul, his gone days, his past days of fun and fear, and feelings buried within himself, as one among the collective of students who keep taking the exam on every passing day. Every day, a new batch of students enter the examination hall with prayers and hope, but the knowledge, and the curiosity to learn is unchanging, and it is this process that keeps all of us on-track in the race of life.