Diploma of HTFU
There are telltale signs that a professional college has finally come of age.
For instance, as a specialty matures, sub-specialities inevitably arise. Under the umbrella of Utopian Medicine, for instance, we have seen the inexorable rise of Waiting Room Medicine, Bus-stop Surgery and Seaside PR. Another unmistakable mark of maturity is the formalisation of a college’s educational roles.
F.UCEMs, PUPPETS and MUPPETS well remember how the pioneers of the Utopian College had to battle countless detractors and nay-sayers, and had to overcome many fiendish foes and obstinate obstacles to make the college what it is today. Among these challenges is how best to transmit the lessons learnt by the fondling members in the School of Hard Knocks to the naive and unknowing MUPPETS that follow in their footsteps.
Think back to a time before the luxury of the web and the golden age of social media meducation. Many of our forebears couldn’t even use crayons properly and were forced to chisel out the principles of their emerging specialty in tablets of sun-baked excrement using just their yellowed teeth and unmanicured fingernails. These pearls of wisdom, hard won by the ancients, must not be lost to future generations.
Indeed, the UCEM Council Executive have motioned, with characteristic certitude, to ensure that the labours of the now aging and infirm fondling members were not in vain. They have decreed that selected F.UCEMs will be chosen to teach aspiring MUPPETS the art, science and comedy of utopian medical practice. From this day forth, members of this select group will be anointed with UCEM’s new Diploma of Heutagogical Tutelage for the Failing Unwashed (DipHTFU). Yet very few have the necessary talent, capabilities and personality defects to be worthy of the DipHTFU post-nominals.
Requirements for the award of the DipHTFU:
- expertise in problem-based learning. Through an ability to recognise that the student is usually the problem, the HTFU diplomate achieves success where others flounder.
- the ability to ‘man up’ and teach andragogically, while recognising that some highly tense feeble underlings require a more pedagogical approach.
- an intuitive appreciation of the difference between formative and summative assessments, between norm and criterion referencing, and between eLearning and uLearning… and lots of other ridiculous terminology.
- mastery of multiple learning modalities, including visual, auditory and kinesthetic. The diplomate recognises when a poke in the eye, a clip around the ears or a kick in the ar$e will help a student learn.
- the mental toughness to withstand the bleating despair of pessimistic students who were always going to ace the test.
- the ability to teach on the run… students learn even when the diplomate is running away from them.
- abstinence from didaskalogenic activities.
- sado-masochistic tendencies — the pleasure of watching bumbling novices suffer as they fumble through a presentation of their approach to rectal foreign bodies, is offset by the exquisite pain of actually having to listen to what is being said.
- mountaineering experience, including guiding multiple groups of hopelessly timid fashionable underpant-wearers on successful ascents of Mount FACEM.
or… - one million dollars!
Cheques may be addressed to:
Professor Harry Stickler,
Chair of Pedantry, School of Health and Information Technology,
Utopian College of Emergency for Medicine,
Enlightenment Boulevard,
near Pyongyang, North Korea
Special announcement!
Finally, the UCEM Council Executive has announced that the first recipient of this prestigious new qualification is none other than Dr Trevor Jackson F.UCEM DipHTFU…
UCEM Core Content
- Utopian College of Emergency for Medicine (UCEM)
- UCEM Publications and Position Statements
- UCEM Mission Statement and Essential Roles and Core Competencies
- About the Utopian College. Including Education; Examinations; and Collegial Hierarchy
- Utopian Medicine General News
Chris is an Intensivist and ECMO specialist at The Alfred ICU, where he is Deputy Director (Education). He is a Clinical Adjunct Associate Professor at Monash University, the Lead for the Clinician Educator Incubator programme, and a CICM First Part Examiner.
He is an internationally recognised Clinician Educator with a passion for helping clinicians learn and for improving the clinical performance of individuals and collectives. He was one of the founders of the FOAM movement (Free Open-Access Medical education) has been recognised for his contributions to education with awards from ANZICS, ANZAHPE, and ACEM.
His one great achievement is being the father of three amazing children.
On Bluesky, he is @precordialthump.bsky.social and on the site that Elon has screwed up, he is @precordialthump.
| INTENSIVE | RAGE | Resuscitology | SMACC
