Syedyshev Oleg
Syedyshev Oleg

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Humorous Essays Based on students' memories

"All have died
except for those who are alive, and those whom we remember"Confucius

Essay 81. A Prankster

"And years, like birds, are flying away
But we are too busy to look back at the bygone day...",
- a song sings.


It's a good song, a sincere one! I liked most of all when it was sung by Mark Bernes (1911-1969, a Soviet actor and singer, who performed some of the most touching songs about the World war II). Of course, it is great that life does not give us a chance to return into the past, or some of us would move in a circle for ever. However just to look back ... It is necessary to look back; we should look back by all means. At least in order to see what you did for the bygone years, to asses and make an attempt to avoid something in the future. For instance, just tell me, how I, a seventeen-year-old loafer then, could guess, that a young assistant instructor of the General Anatomy Department would become a mature head of the very Department. I did not think about that at all then. Yes, everything described in the essay "Anatomy" really happened, however how I could look into the future and see in that skinny, even a bit adynamic young assistant instructor an anatomy expert Mikhail Ivanovitch turned into. I am not the Messing (Wolf Messing, 1899-1974, was an alleged psychic and telepathist whose predictions were taken seriously by both Hitler and Stalin during the World war II). And he really became a pro. He deserves praise and respect for that! These days, as well as in all times, students love their professors, when an exam is passed and a grade is given. Well, but before that... Mikhail Ivanovitch Zolotukhin graduated from a Dentistry Department of the medical institute.

Sure enough, he was aware of the importance of knowledge of teeth anatomy for a dentist. Students of the Dentistry Department, though felt offended by him, when he was hard on them with teeth modelling in their first year, forgave him anyway. And they had a good reason to take offence. A teeth modelling test meant the following: one modelled, submitted and forgot about that, but Mikhail Ivanovitch used to find not one or five, but fifty mistakes, and as a result one had to do modelling again. Students modelled, submitted, well, what else he needed? They were really trying hard, as much as they could, but that parasite, and that was the name he was called in that situation, again found not one or six, but forty eight mistakes! How could the students like that! Well, he was just mocking at people! And the same routine was repeated five or six times, and some record breakers reached the score of ten times. There was some teeth structure test! Today from a position of a dentistry trade experts' patient, I am not only applauding to Mikhail Ivanovitch, but acclaiming, and my acclamation looks like turning into a standing ovation, as it used to be in the good days of old at party congresses. Nevertheless my mouth would not dare to call M.I.Zolotukhin "a prankster". He was "a terror of the anatomy department", yeah, even now I would have tied something to his coat's half-belt for his tricks. And what else could it be? A group passed a test, and everybody was sitting satisfied for the last minutes, saying good byes to a professor, making plans of where to celebrate the event of passing the anatomy test: at "Sovremennik" or the group monitor's apartment. And there a class room door opened and a student almost shouted: "Zolotikhin is making the round" and immediately disappeared.

Literally in a minute M.I.Zolotukhin entered the room. When Mikhail Ivanovitch was a Kemerovo State Medical Institute student, the Anatomy Department was headed by an outstanding Faradey, or according to his passport Timofey Fadeyevitch Ryzhkov, who mercilessly made a student leave a class for not having a surgeon's cap on his or her head, and if someone's doctor's coat was not ironed he used to shout at male students: "To the mine!!!...", and at females: "To a beer stand, to sell beer..." Though that was the horrible Faradey and that suited him. In Odessa they have a reason to say that "a joke repeated twice is not a joke anymore".
So in a moment after the herald Mikhail Ivanovitch entered the room and first of all dismissed those who were without surgeon's caps. There were not many of them, though someone was always caught. If he got satisfied only with that, but he went further, he decided to conduct another test and check the group's knowledge. Only five passed the test!? That was a real nightmare!!! So if for his stunts with teeth' modelling there were ovations, then after his double check of the results of the test there had to be clearly heard stamping as a sign of protest.
What? Too much? Maybe. I am just stating the moment when the events were taking place.

And now looking back, I will say that there were Faradeys and "the Pranksters" like Mikhail Ivanovitch Zolotukhin who made students form a habit of being careful and even elegant doctors, the graduates of Kemerovo Medical Institute. And you see by yourself how smart they are, when watching a TV show "Live Healthy", all of its participants are the Kemerovo Medical Institute graduates.

The plot of the story was kindly suggested by Irina Cherkas (Tykvina).

10 November, 2011

© Copyright: Oleg Syedyshev, 2012
Publishing licence #21210010305

Translated by Viktoria Potykinato content ↑


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