Me and my life

This is a very convoluted and difficult to understand post. It is directly on my thoughts on 25/04/2017 press interview. Our politicians start their discussion on free education and reaffirm that they are committed to protect free education. In the middle of the way they say that SAITM is equipped with all the professors, lecturers and consultants and state medical faculties do not have that. But they do not come with a proposal how they are going to recruit the staff to state medical faculties. Okay, lets hope that government gives SAITM hospital and gives clinical training and that solution is accepted by all other parties. What is the government planing to do if many more private faculties come up and request for government hospitals? So if government starts to give hospitals on what basis would they be giving. Definitely it should be on bidding basis. It would be like government bidding the patients for private entities. Isn't there a ethical issue and how could the patient...

"Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains. One man thinks himself the master of others, but remains more of a slave than they are." - Jean-Jacques Rousseau This is not a philosophical post about independence. This is regarding what happened in the next few years after independence and the silent atrocities done to a segment of its people. Today generally I see the estate Tamils or Indian Tamils (although it is not the correct term to describe them, the most correct term would be Sri Lankans of recent Indian origin) being ridiculed, they are considered for menial tasks and odd jobs. The health ministry has many programs targeting the estate population. The university entrance of them is considerably lower compared to other population. School drop out rate is higher among them. Why does it happen like that? The answers are the excerpts from the book "Palmyra Fallen" by Rajan Hoole. "In three Citizenship Acts dragged over fourteen months, the governm...

In 1971, university entrance was based on a quota system according to the medium of instruction. District quota system was introduced in 1977. These two were done to rectify the disparities due to availability of resources. The first one created many angered youth and a 30 year long civil war. The second one is a hot topic for people to discuss whether it is good or bad. But recently with the private medical college issue and everything, the district quota system is being used as a justification why a private medical college is essential in Sri Lanka. And the craziest thing is that the justification being told by the government ministers, past higher education minister.  First of all, the district quota system should have been an interim measure and there should have been a proper plan/ vision on how to share the resources across the island, so the student studying in a rural school in Monaragala and the student studying in Colombo have the equal access to resources, so a day co...

"Future is not set on stone" What scares me to the core is the future and its associated uncertainty. Nearly 5 years ago, I started my med school career, I had no idea what my plan for the future. Now, just 3 months for the final exams, I am still at that place with no plan for the future. What is more distressing is that, you see your friends and classmates who started with you and enrolled in other courses in university are graduating and are with a plan for the future while you are still stuck in this place with so much uncertainties. Adding more to the stress is that people asking you what type of doctor are you going to be. And I come up with different answers each time that question is asked. Adding onto this, the exam stress of the Final MBBS and the merit list and performance anxiety of the long and short cases are the perfect blend to make a person insane. People say setting short term goals would help in this situation and I have been doing that for the past 5...

As a state university student, whenever there is a protest by university students, I hear a lot of public outcry by both educated and uneducated telling that "It is only in Sri Lanka that it is happening. All because of free education, students do not value the education given to them. In all the western countries students have to pay for their education and they don't do protests and they value their education." What amazes me is these people do not even try to see how it is in other countries, how students are protesting and for what they are protesting. The same problems exist in other countries even in western countries and in countries where students have to pay for the education. Here are some of the videos from YouTube of those protests. 2010 London - "Tens of thousands of students marched through London on Wednesday against plans to triple university tuition fees, and violence erupted as a minority battled police and trashed a building containing the headquar...

This post is also related to SAITM issue. In the society, if a person is going to buy a phone, the buyer will ask several questions about its quality, price, warrantee, and ask from several different people about their opinion about the phone. Then only the person will make up his mind to buy the phone. So, lets see what happened with SAITM. First the advertised they are accepted by SLMC, GMC of UK, UGC of Ministry of Higher Education, affiliated to some Russian Institute, and have twinning programme with final years in Russia. All of this without having a teaching hospital of its own. Within 1 week of this advertisement, SLMC advertised in all the newspapers that it does not recognize the MBBS degree offered by SAITM. Yet the students joined the institute and the government allowed the recruitment to take place. Nowhere in the world such a thing would take place. A higher education institute not approved by the state being allowed to recruit students. Usual and the logical process in ...

This post is part of a series in addressing the several questions posed by the people who support SAITM, private medical college in Sri Lanka. Foremost point they argue on is that all the other countries are having private medical colleges why Sri Lanka should not have them. First let's take the countries who are in the top 10 positions in the Human Development Index of United Nations and also the regional countries (SAARC) and compare their GDP, percentage of GDP on health, education, health level, structure of their medical education. Human Development Index is a summary measure of average achievement in key dimensions of human development: a long and healthy life, being knowledgeable and have a decent standard of living. (1)  HDI Rank Country Life Expectancy at Birth Infant Mortality Rate per 1000 live births Maternal Mortality Ratio per 100000 live births Total Health Expenditure as % of GDP Government expenditure on education as % of GDP Expenditure on educa...