I believe STOIC make programmes for BBC TV, and have won numberous broadcasting awards I can't be the only concert pianist at IC either.

However, despite my (admittedly) half-assed attempt to try and counter your claims of being 'better' than a non-medic, I can't be bothered, simply because I think you sound like a special kinda guy...really special, what with that specially over-inflated ego you have there.

Obviously you are better at some things, like being an arrogant prick. Hey ho, that's one gift I'm glad I don't have.

Oh, and by the way, I believe that my cat would have a 'better' mind looking after it if it got sick than I would - Vet school asks for all that extra-curricular rubbish AND tougher grades...but I suppose there's some other magic reason why the sun shines out of medic asses, no?

Oh look an arrogant medic, obviously been here far too long to know anything about application procedures for other subjects, because shock horror my interviews had absolutely nothing to do with my subject and were all about me socially aswell.

Integration is frowned upon by senior medics, isn't that why all the first years are dragged away from forming a mixed group of friends on arrival by having a separate freshers week? Before i get attacked i should give the background to these claims, i live with medics (lots of them..), some integrate socially with non medics, partake in halls events etc. a majority however don't...and don't really seem to integrate with those medics who do!

As for having more clubs etc,as a subject you have a larger population and maybe it also comes down to something else, we like to be social with people from other subject areas and therefore gain a wider outlook on life by experiences shared with people who have different perspectives.

Oh and a final point, if you as medics are so great, i'd like to see you cope without the help of equipment and facilities which those who are 'just overdeveloped in some tedious field or another' hadn't made for you. We all study very important subjects at IC and they all inter relate in vital ways to support modern life. So if you think that you are so much better then you really are a bunch of arrogant K**bs.

In the old days IC was made up of three parts: Guilds, RSM and RCS. They hated each other, and all had their own sports clubs and societies.

It took until the mid 80's for this hatred to disappear, at which point they realised fighting each other was pointless - they could integrate, and enjoy the differences that each bit of IC offered.

Then the medics arrived. If it took the rest of IC nearly 80 years to integrate, then what hope have the medics got when they are on different campuses all over London.

Quite frankly I couldn't care if the medics hate everyone else. Good for them! I share a house with 4 medics and they don't display the type of arrogance that this article appears to stereotype them in.

If you want to be different fine. I suppose it gives some people something to moan about and get worked up about. I find it quite funny really.

Can I just ask them medics where all the ELECTRONIC equipment they use to help treat people comes from, and all the CHEMICAL analysis techniques were developed. Certainly not by medics, simply because they seem to spend all their time playing sport and writing rubbish (Radio 4?!?!?! Who listens to Radio4?)

Hmmm, now let me check.

There are 2000+ medics at Imperial. There are probably 250 people doing Materials, and maybe 800 doing Chemistry. To be honest I don't care about the exact numbers.

Medics have 25 sports teams, big deal. The rest of Imperial College (all 7500+ of us) manage to put out 75 easy, there's something like 30 sports clubs, and people like Football regularly turn out 7 teams... do the math!

The reason Medics turn out sports teams is because they have a history of doing so. RSM turn out more sports teams as a proportion of their students than you do, so grow up!

Yes you may be a very talented individual, congratulations! But when you fancy doctors are using your X-Rays, your computers to track patient records, your expensive medical instruments that you need to save lives, just remember who invented them... For the most part it was Engineers, Physicists, Biochemists (ie the rest of Imperial) When you've quite finished getting yourself off on your life giving power trip, just remember that without the Engineers and Scientists that you value so little, Medicine would still be in the dark ages, you'd think leeches and amputation were a panacea, and many more people would die.

It's not Medics that save people, it's modern medicine. And you, your mates, your course, your department and your entire profession are not the be all and end all of that.

Humanity has advanced through co-operation and integration of many scientific disciplines, not through arrogance and seperatism.

Don't get me wrong, I do value your profession. I am glad that some of the finest people will attend to me when I am ill. But i recognise that Doctors are not solely credited with Human Life - we are where we are because we work together.

Hear hear!

I don't believe someone could write an article like this and expect it to help his point...I just don't know what to say. It seems to sum up all the reasons why there is a split between medics and non-medics in one article....Shish how stupid can one person be ?

And just to clear this up:

• I hold a BUSA silver medal for a team sport. So I'm a decorated sportsman. I've excelled in that sport since the age of 13.
• I have a wide and varied range of interests, although not in the classical lines of Drama and Music.
• I'm an engineering student.

So don't start telling me you are better than me.

Yes we are different, you value arts and culture, I do not. I beleive that all the interests you hold dear are essentially stupid and pointless.

All my interests relate to current or future things. Technology, Information and the like. I look forward, you look back - that is the difference between us.

You, and indeed your few arrogant brethren dislike the future, it scares you. Hence you refuse to embrace change and integration. That's the barrier. Not differences, for we are all different in some way (unless all Medics are in fact the product of some raelian cult)

Embrace your differences, that's my advice to you. As soon as you accept that it's not because your better, it's not because you are different, it's because you are too stuck in your ways, you'll understand why integration has so far failed.

In contrast to the old adage, i hope you can teach old dogs new tricks.

Maybe he's being 'ironic' again...or maybe he's just trying to get a rise out of a few people so he can feel smug and self-satisfied.

I have to wonder whether these incredibly 'witty' articles by Prince Albert are worth having on Live! any more, because all he seems to have done recently is proven that he is arrogant, and articles like this do nothing to try and create a feeling of mutual respect between medics and non-medics at Imperial College(, London) - something which a lot of medics and non-medics would dearly love to achieve.

It's quite funny how stereotypically humourless IC (sorry, I'm not allowed to say that am I) students are.

Prince Albert should come to one of the more laid back colleges (modesty prohibits me from saying its name, though it does begin with a "U") where his talents aren't wasted.

He couldn't have gone to the College beginning with U.

In his world there are no medical students at UCL.

Royal Free and University College Medical School maybe, but never such a wide, varied and multi-diciplinary college as UCL.

Did you get the heated responses you were after then Prince?

Personally, I'm not actually going to stoop to your level and write the scathing, angry rant you seem to be wanting.

I suppose you can drink ten pints a night more than any non-medic as well?

Wow.

But medics are thick! Going to IC has been one of most worrying experiences of my life. It has taught me that the people I once regarded as "elite" aren't. They can't add up, read scales, take care of their own bodies, talk to non-medics or even think creatively.

What they are required to do is work reasonably hard (ah that BSc year) and learn a lot of facts from a book they spend their whole time refering back to (because they have forgotten).

However, once you've got over their arrogance and inability to talk about anything other than medicine, medical students, or medical student's events, they are actually quite good fun.

Wow again. Thanks for cheering me up Prince Albert. I was having a boring day.

I have forwarded this article to my friends training to become medical doctors, asking for their responses. (who probably rarely read Live!)

I shall post them when they arrive......

I'm expecting a rash of 'hear hear's and 'I bet I could be more arrogant'!!

I wish I was as good as a medic </sniff>

Just read a book on Medicine, go along to the body world's exhibition, be a hospital radio DJ for one day, get a B in Biology A-level and say that you want to make a difference to people's lives. Oh and fill out a UCAS form (and if you're not in the first year - find some cash).

Just to prove I am greater than Prince, I'm going to resort to my classical education to prove a point to him.

A well known book neatly delineates everything wrong with the world into 4 neat categories. See if you can work out which book I mean.

• War

How do medical students prevent war? Answer: they don't. War is prevented by tolerance, understanding and negotiation. It is part of Man's essential greed that we have War at all, and Medicine never made anyone less greedy.

• Famine

How do medics prevent Famine? Answer: they don't. Famine is prevented by redistribution of resources (a logistical problem) and better methods (an agricultural problem).

• Death

Do medics prevent people dying? Answer: They can't. Despite our Royal Friend's massive ego, the combined efforts of the medical profession have failed to cure death. They can prolong life sure, but death is inevitable.

• Disease

Do Medical Students cure disease? Answer: Yes, partially. Medics administer treatments (generally designed by a Biochemist or Chemist), using complex equipment (Designed by Engineers and Scientists).

I think I have argued that Medics are responsible for alleviating part of 25% of Society's ills. Hardly the whole thing?

And finally, because I am by nature a vindictive person, I'm going to end by alluding to the fact that being named after an obscure genital piercing gives some clue as to why Prince Albert is a holier than thou little prick.

Oh, perhaps the reason why we dont have so many things is that other departments (which are schools) have work to do! First year medics (for I am first year Maths), get days off every like two weeks, and had a few spare days after the january exams (of which is it rumoured, only 70 out of 350 passed). People in other departments work 9-6 everyday except wednesday, and then have the coursework & problem sheets to go with it, in their *spare* time.

Perhaps if you lot worked as much as we did in the first few years, then you might be able to do your degree in half the time!

* not schools - so naturally we are smaller.

Wasn't the greatest public health advance ever made in Britain the building of sewers (by, er... Engineers) in the nineteenth century, clearing up cholera and other water-borne diseases almost completely.

And this was while 'doctors' at the time were t***ting about with leeches, drilling skulls and prescribing mercury.

*looks in awe at the 'discussion' spawned by this, and the inevitable widening of the chasm between medics/ others*

I believe that Prince Albert should go straight to hell. Not for the above article, but the mere SUGGESTION of EEE Light Opera Society.

*shudders*

EEE light opera? I don't know about that but I hear rumours that quite a good play was put on in EEE last term. Of the 7 strong mulidisciplined cast 2 were electrical engineers as were the producer and technical director.

Cor blimey kids, all this bile from one tongue-in-cheek article about THE ancient heckle-raiser. Candy and babies springs to mind, tho not quite in the same way as Matthew Kelly sees a lollipop. Credit where credit's due, prince albert has shown once again he truly is the King of the mass debate.

Hahahahahahaha! No really, my dear Albert, you'll have to try harder than that. Satire is to be wielded like a honed carbon steel razor, not a lead rapier. This is a overly obvious, turgid and puerile attempt. Better than the rest? Come back when you've got some decent jokes.

Calm down calm down boys and girls. This is an old, and pretty tierd artical. Its obviously a joke and there is realy no need to react to something like this. As has been said above this sort of artical is like candy to a baby for some people, they fly into some sort of comical rage. Come on quoting stuff, really is there any need? Oh yeah person from UCL I am pretty disappointed in you, you should to know better? Please take the time and come up with something interesting next time. Though the replies have been funny.

What's wrong with everyone???

Whether you appreciate Prince Albert's sense of humour or not, surely you must be able to see that he is not serious! Moreso, it is an attempt to wind people up. By making the argument that medics are "better" he provokes a very amusing p****ing contest.

Personally, as an engineering student I found this article quite funny - exploring many stereotypes (and revealing many more through the discussion). More please!

When I came to England, I expected everyone to be funny and witty and have a sense of humour. I was so disappointed. If this is the funniest IC gets, then we should drown ourselves in shame. Prince Albert's article is idiotically boring, and the replies actually suggest that some people took it seriously.

Where are all the funny people? Aren't doctors meant to have a morbid sense of black humour, with engineers and scientists being cynically funny? I think we urgently need lectures in humour. Or we'll have to endure quacks like Prince thinking they're funny....

(in his best 18th Century Aristocratic voice) Sir, you challeneged me to a duel by sword, prepare to fight. En guarde!

Why do you use the pseudonym Prince Albert? Do you want one? Or is it that you wish to marry a fat half german queen?

Seer sunday for a jam. Oh and where the hell has my "All Aboard" record got to?

Peace ppl, specialization is a phenomena of the new industrial age. One is good at doing something and another one at doing something else.

The ones who deserve respect are the ones who cross the boundaries of the sciences and art, e.g Leonardo Da Vinci, ripped up human bodies, made anatomy into a science, was an excellent engineer and architect and not to mention an even more excellent artist of his times.

Prince Albert has done pretty well by causing this intimidation and getting so many responses but for the ones that do feel intimidated by him, just remember that arrogance represents insecurity.

You all have too much time. And too many chips on shoulders. The article was created to get just this response - it wasn't meant to be razor sharp satire - his razor sharp satire is something to behold tho - merely, I suspect, an attempt to inject a little light relief into Live!

"Civil Engineers save more lives than doctors"

My source?

The World Health Organisation.

In response to the fact that this article was *supposed* to be funny...perhaps some people have a different sense of humour?

First response from a medical chum (name removed for anonymity):

Dear Tom,

This attitude is sadly something something that I have been forced to live with, in every aspect of medicine, from the pre-pubescent freshers to the archaic surgery consultants. It grows like a cancer, consuming the majority and pushing the rest further and further away, seeming to prevail in the 'good old' teaching hospitals in London. Luckily for me I'm not competitive and will hopefully end up in a peaceful, relaxed, dead end job in the country, escaping this rather sad way of thinking.

How medics can believe they are more well rounded than anybody else, purely by mixing with other medics is just plain confusing.

Anyway, take care and will see you soon for more campaigning.

Peace, xxxxxxxx

So maybe it was intended tongue-in-cheek (I think we're all agreed on that), but does it betray a more ominous underlying truth? Congrats Prince Albert, you have really stirred up debate!

Quite frankly I think it is a fine article.

Although it should be "compared with" and not "compared to".

I'm sure medics can be pedantic too :P

hehehe. IC are all arrogant. Instead of saying something more intellectually retortive..... they just destroyed themselves by saying 'blah blah blah.......we're engineers, we saved your ass in WW2, WW1, etc etc; we designed your blah blah blah, yadda yadda yadda....." What, personally??? This prince albert played them all for fools, got the response he was looking for and won. Personally, I thought it was quite funny.......I think the merger isn't working as well as people imagined it would. Did they even imagine it would?? Maybe that's why we're all off to Whitechapel, off the QM campus next year.........

IC medic 1;

RSM, Guilds, normal IC, 0

Birthday February 10, 1983

Biography: abstract....I can't really explain - you have to know me

Location:Whitechapel,London

Status: St. Bartholomew's and the Royal London School of Medicine and Dentistry, University of London (phew)

Interests: All sports, music n socialising

Occupation: Barman, Phlebotomist, Porno star(starred in the Biggest Gangbang-with Annabel Chong), Porter, part time medical student

Fetishes: Beastiality, Scat play, enemas etc

Wow. Mass sense of humour failure? "Prince Albert"... amusing article -- pity it seems to have sailed over the heads of most here.

And which faculty SU provides this website?

Barts & The London Students' Association...

...a school of Queen Mary, University of London.

:P

First of all, I thought the article was funny, well written and a good giggle and shall reply in kind. For those of you that clearly don't get it, get out more!

I like Imperial because it's the only place where medics are the 'thick' ones... I believe all the engineering subjects at IC require higher grades than medicine (ABB, I mean, come on, what's the world coming to when you can do medicine with anything less than 3A grades or 8513 new fangled UCAS points?)

Furthermore, from my unfortunate association with them in the first year, it seems that their course is piss easy. Their only work in the first term was to design a poster. I hear by the 4th year they start learning PowerPoint.

And it's true about them being clueless. They follow each other around like cattle and cannot talk about anything not to do with Medicine. It's the only way they can keep it all in. Their exams are tick the box, and they only have to pass, not work for certain class of degree. And everybody knows the BSc year is only there because the standards are now lower and they cannot teach it all in the original 5 years. The days of medics being revered are now long gone.

Oh and they moan. 'We're under so much pressure!' they whine, 'if we make a mistake we may kill someone'. Well, when engineers get it wrong we kill hundreds if not thousands all at once. That's pressure, boys and girls...

As for Prince Albert, keep up the good work...

"Oh yeah person from UCL I am pretty disappointed in you, you should to know better?"

I see they teach you grammar at IC too. :-P

More seriously though, why are all of you jumping to the bait? This article was brilliant, as was the one on fees. My brother once wrote something like this for his student paper and got threats of violence against him. Why can't anyone take a joke?

Not everyone here speaks english as a first language, you know.

And whilst many did see the humour inherent, some may have used the opportunity to discuss the foundation the article was based on. After all, it wouldn't have been amusing at all if there wasn't something there already.

I think you managed to show why there was such animosity at the Varsity match this evening. It was medics throwing eggs at the coaching staff, they should have been thrown out of the ground, not the "vanilla" IC students.

And as for you're "I'm better than you" arguement, maybe you are, would you like a flake with that?

Oh for Christ's sake. No-one is going to tell me that the average rugby fan is representative of ICSM students are they? We are a heterogeneous bunch just like the rest of you. Get used to it.

Do you know anything about Rugby? They don't segregate Rugby fans at match's as we're not prone to hooliganism :) Personally I couldn't give a f***, I wasn't here for any of the merger and I can't say I know any medics outside my year, mainly because they have their own sports teams...

'Oh for Christ's sake. No-one is going to tell me that the average rugby fan is representative of ICSM students are they? We are a heterogeneous bunch just like the rest of you. Get used to it.'

No, the average rugby fan is not representative of ICSM. The average rugby fan doesn't feel the need to hurl eggs at the oppositions coaching side, and spectators. Bizarrely, some of the medic supporters last night seemed to think this was necessary. There were hundreds of people out at Richmond last night, and about a third of them have ever played rugby at a competitive standard. If more had, then it would have been more enjoyable for everyone - even England vs Argentina, probably one of the most passion filled games in the international calendar is not segregated at Twickenham. Why? Because rugby fans might be pissheads, they might be bigger than other people, but they aren't f***ing hooligans.

I thought the standard of rugby that was played by the medics last night was enough to please the crowd. But no - like the good winners they are, a minority of ICSM supporters hurled eggs and oranges, and (worse, really) taunted and spat at the IC team as they were walking off the pitch.

Well done guys, you really let us know who the big people were with that.

I turned down all 5 of my offers to study Medicine (at Imperial and Cambridge among others) as I decided I didn't want to work with ill people all my life (as good as reason as any!). Instead I did a science degree and am just finishing a PhD. Ironically, I am tutoring 3 medic undergrads who can't get to grips with the science component of their course, which in my opinion isn't much more difficult than A-level biology.

Oh and btw, in my spare time I speak 3 languages, play the piano and trumpet, have represented my county in my chosen sport, have travelled the world extensively and am a bit of a whizz in the kitchen.

I also have a wide range of friends, including other scientists, engineers, medics, lawyers, artists, and low and behold people who don't even have a degree!

That sounded a bit arrogant didn't it? I'm not usually one to blow my own trumpet (no pun intended!) but I felt it was important to point out that it is not just in medicine where they recruit well rounded individuals. I don't feel remarkable in the least as most of the people I know here at Imperial have similar qualities.

I am a lemon and tree engineering student.

I speak 4 different languages, and can communicate with three species of monkey.

I once bent a wire coat hanger while removing my DJ (I was on my way to a rather select soir?e with some most eminent and intersting chaps) into such an exsquisite form that it won a Turner prize.

My farts parp such succinct and elegant motifs that several piano concertos have blossomed thereof. Radio 3 wouldn't be the same without my scores breaking up the same old Brahms and Wagner.

I have traveled the world extensively, and not content with that, have been on several special NASA missions to find the effects of low gravity on untennably high IQs.

In short Mr Albert, if that is your real name, I own you.

All you can do is point and name (AKA do medicine), babble on about some tawdry and trivial c*** for the old folk who listen to radio 4, teach people to play the spoons.

You're nothing.

I've met some of you lot and you all suck. ha ha ha

Yes, but I suck better than you. Deal with it!

Christ - you've all got a lot of time on your hands especially you Mr Albert. Surely you should be saving lives or relaxing with a large cock up your a**e. PS I know where you live.

Who wrote this website? Why does it sensor a-r-s-e but not COCK? Weird. I wonder whether it sensors c**t, f**k, s**t and piss.

Oh well - 3 out of 4 ain't bad. (slightly undermining my 'too much much time on hands' argument now).

IC Geek,

I beleive the tests of the obscenity filter have been done within other articels many times before. You obviously don't have enough time to read them all.

Oh My God. It goes to show that some people really do think an awful lot of themselves despite their radio 4 program getting slated in the press and cut after one episode and the majority of their supposed original humour from old radio shows and the net. I can not honestly believe that someone like you ever made it into medical school, let alone out of your mother with a head the size of yours, topped as it is by a monstosity of a haircut that Princess Albert seems to consider worth ?100. You should try to convert some of that supposedly great grey stuff into some fashion sense. T**t. Moreoever it's hard work and a good attitude that makes a good doctor not some overinflated sense of worth. The medical profession is desperately trying to get away from the paternalistic attitude to medicine that you seem to be trying to rekindle, one can only hope that you either grow up or leave and let the rest of us get on with the job. Sod it, it's hardly like you'll ever make a consultant anyway.

sorry editor for the copy and paste, but i think i can put Mr Moose's post in context this following from some Kings Website

"The show was stolen by a musical double act from Imperial, Mr Adam Kay and Dr Suman Biswas. Their writing (for a recent Radio 4 series) has been described as 'fairly amusing' by the BMJ, and 'About as funny as a six hour wait on a hospital trolley' by the Guardian. This duo treated us to a polished musical cabaret act, which was remarkably not sick, with the exception of a song entitled, 'Rohypnol.' These guys will go far."

<ahem!>

Yeah, but most of the skill came from Sumans end.

what is this this radio 4 show and where can we listen to it?!!???