Recently a medical student of first-year MBBS – UMDC Lahore has committed suicide by jumping from the roof of the campus hostel with the attempted subject still in ICU, there have been again raising concerns related to this issue as always after something reached its eventual critical stage.
Where the problem lies? She was merely a student in the first year of her professional degree -a huge career to follow and where the institutions are lacking in playing their part? Let’s discuss it here. According to multiple reports, it was merely a stage that being failed the girl couldn’t get over which clearly shows how much we as a youth are lacking patience and adaptive ability to the chocolates of this life as someone has said this life is going to be a box of chocolates and you never know which chocolate you might be getting one day.
Read more: Suicide of three sisters highlights India dowry violence
Understanding the matter better
Parents in the current phase of life have started pressuring their children over the most profitable profession MBBS unlike the older times when the thirst for this degree didn’t exist much but with lacking economic resources only professional degrees are being considered to be worthy enough by the elder of society and then out of love they force their little ones to burn their everything to own the success of their life without even knowing what might be the consequences of going against the will of their own.
And when unfortunately some of them can’t perform up to the mark, they are ridiculed by them instead of giving their company and support and children out of fear go on doing those things in life which don’t even put their lives at danger but also the mental lives of their parents. These might be the two reasons limited to the students that commit suicide in medical schools – extreme pressure of coping with their syllabus and not being able to do it or the lack of support from parents but what institutions are doing, they are adding a cherry on top.
Most of the medical institutions particularly private ones treat their students with extra care and attention because they are receiving monstrous tuition fees for the required degree and it is not a bad approach but what they are doing silently is being over toxic in their approach instead of giving free hand to students as they admire of when they admit themselves in a university. Keeping an extra check over them and scaring those students into the medical study who never took admission on their own will end up hurting their emotions and when such students face extreme exhaustion from both ends of the rope; their institution and parents- they end up being drug addicts or in suicidal attempts of self-harm.
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The way forward
First and foremost we need to start developing and nurturing the desires of students at their school level and what kind of profession they actually want to pursue. This will help in building a youth that is working with passion and enthusiastic approach not mere for bread earning and social standards as mostly med students are doing in the current era.
Second, the institutes clearly need to look out for the students who are not doing good at exams but looking out I don’t mean to implicate the idea of exhausting them but to give them proper care and solution to the problems they are facing. Student counselors need to make sure an institution is a heavenly place for its residents but not a pressure cooker. If these steps are done accurately we might end up saving our youth from a whole lot of mental stress drive that is coming their way and can contribute to the creeping economy of our country that needs a hand.
Written by Talha Qamar
The writer is a third-year MBBS student at CMH Bhawalpur medical college. The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Global Village Space.