An interesting article on BBC News
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/merseyside/4633339.stm
reports that Nottingham University were all set to welcome a promising
medical student this time last year. He was said to have "fantasised
about unlimited success, power and brilliance" and his parents are
reported as "telling people that he was destined to become 'not just a
doctor - a surgeon'". Unfortunately the budding surgeon was unable to
take up his place because he was arrested for killing his parents and
using their credit cards to fund some excessive spending. He has
pleaded diminished responsibility on the grounds of having
narcissistic personality disorder.
In my training days we would discuss the problem of "difficult"
Registrars, who would usually turn out to have some quirk of
personality which was causing the difficulty. The only solution we
could see was "weeding out" unsuitable people at the selection stage
before entering the VTS, or ideally before entering medical school.
I wonder how easy it is to spot the narcissist, or other personality
disorder, among the swathe of keen young students clamouring to get
into medical school. Apparently, not very.
--
Michael Leuty
Nottingham, UK
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