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By Sarah Lin; Edited by Katerina Theocharus
Bernie Bernard Jnr. remembers the day he received that dreaded email from Medfac. It stated that he, Bernie, the self-acclaimed light, honour and glory of the Bernard family, had just failed his EOC exam. As Bernie describes it, that moment was undoubtedly the greatest blemish in his perfect straight-A record, and a slap in the face to the high distinction he was expecting. “It’s hard to explain just how massive an impact it had on me,” Bernie says. “It wasn’t just about the blow to my hard-earned dream of becoming a neurosurgeon. It was also about the eternal guilt-tripping from my parents, the infinite disdain from my siblings. According to my calculations, this acute life event stressor alone increased my risk of cardiovascular disease by 49.5%.”
These were challenges that Bernie would contend with long after he received the tragic news. But that night, ruminating in his room while banned from the family dinner, one question dominated his thoughts – what had gone wrong? Bernie had done everything right – he always did. He had watched all of his lectures at 2x speed and faked attendance at all of his online prac classes. He had made meme after meme. He had even streamed Grey’s Anatomy for 2 weeks straight, followed Doctor Mike on Instagram, meditated for 8 hours, ensured his daily 14-hour beauty sleep, and prayed with perfect piety to the Phase 1 gods. This was his homemade formula for success, fine-tuned to perfection over two days of Foundies study. How could it have gone wrong?
A meme plagiarised created by Bernie during his EOC study
It was around the time when dessert would have been served that the answer finally occurred to Bernie.
“It hit me like acute peritonitis,” he said. “Or maybe those were hunger pains.”
Bernie had deduced that the fault of his failure lay in Nach King’s notes. After all, he had carefully read through each page of King’s guide, even doodling all over the diagrams and adding his own genius annotations like “The mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell” beside a completely unrelated diagram.
“It was impeccable!” Bernie says. “With such strong supporting evidence, I was forced to conclude that there must have been something inherently wrong with King’s notes in the first place. This fault would become the original sin of my medical career.”
The following day, the Jugular received the letter from Bernie that became the basis of this article. Bernie bravely told his story and worked to “expose the fraud” of Nach King, using his personal experience to caution his juniors against following his footsteps.
“DON’T TRUST NACH’S NOTES! HE IS A LIAR AND A FRAUD!” he writes repeatedly.
Bernie informs the Jugular that he has now adjusted his approach, and is sitting at home watching Netflix with Anita Blue’s notes in his hand. “I’ve ripped out all of Nach King’s notes and trashed all the files. Now that I’ve got Blue’s notes, I’m bound for success! I feel invincible and ready to take on the world,” he says.
When asked by the Jugular if there was anything else he would change about his study technique, Bernie replied that his current method was flawless. With such accurate and critical self-evaluation, the Jugular is certain that Bernie is on the right path to becoming an excellent reflective practitioner.
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