Ridiculous!

A total of 1,808 from the 15,500 SPM top scorers, who had applied for Public Services Department (PSD) medical scholarships, have been shortlisted to go through a “shock treatment” at government hospitals.
The students will undergo a mandatory three-day stint from Wednesday at the hospitals, including going to the mortuary and operation theatre.
The scholarship hopefuls will also be taken to other critical units in hospitals like the accident & emergency unit, outpatient clinic, and maternity and orthopaedic wards.
The students will be sent to 46 hospitals and will be required to do a written self-evaluation on their experience.
PSD director-general Datuk Seri Ismail Adam said they wanted the students to see doctors, among others, dealing with dead bodies, badly injured patients and also delivering babies to show them that one needed passion to become a good doctor.

I personally think some form of similar shock treatment could be applied to all applicants to local medical schools, not just the schoalrship applicants. The students just need to tag along a houseman on call and see first-hand what front-line medicine is all about. I recently saw a medical student on attachment almost faint when watching me do a bone marrow biopsy (I assure you, I am really a gentle person!). Imagine the number of people who will change their mind when they see more blood and gore in the wards. Perhaps they should also be made useful as nursing aids and be shown nursing skills like cleaning bedpans and changing sheets. This should go some way towards instilling humility. If I am not mistaken Singapore experimented with this appraoch at one stage and I am not sure how long it was practiced or if it still is practiced.
What do you think? Shock treatment for the freshies?