Experience vs Knowledge

We are all familiar with the eternal battle between the young and the old, the smart and the wise. In most cultures, whether or not elders have any form of education is irrelevant; what matters is they have lived, understood and gained perspective. Modern history, as we all know, is dynamic and ever-changing. Context varies from person to person, profession to profession, country to country. Two identical events happening 50 years apart have unique effects on populations, even if history repeats itself from time to time.

This morning my uncle and I took my aunt to work. The sun was barely in the sky and blankets of ice coated the sidewalk. Mum couldn't get her usual amount of rest because she's been coughing for a few days. My aunt was telling my uncle to start her on an antibiotic, despite having no formal medical education. I was in the back seat and even though my knowledge was readily available (there is no on-off switch), neither of them felt the need to ask me anything. They were more comfortable doing what they have been doing. I understood what this meant; how knowledgable I might have been was not relevant and the explanation for this was quite simple: I'm Generation Y.

I decided to respectfully protest my aunt's decision to give my mother antibiotics, explaining the concept of antibiotic resistance (mum has been on antibiotics for about a month now). She fell silent and quickly responded but it works for me, whenever I feel sick I just take a couple of tablets and I'm all better the following morning.

Despite this being against any antibiotic protocol written, I nodded politely and gently mentioned that the entire course must always be taken. She agreed, but insisted that she would feel better after the first dose.

One of my English teachers in high school taught me an interesting proverb: Experience is a hard teacher for she gives the test first and the lesson afterward. This must be the concept of Generation X to overcome the knowledge-tsunami Generation Y are exposed to.

She seemed hell-bent on feeding her those antibiotics and I know she only means to help mum. But educating a person in the previous generation is rude, disrespectful. So I sat quietly and thought about the variation in hepatic and renal metabolism of medications between people, the perception of side effects and the risk of pseudomembranous colitis due to recurrent antibiotic exposure.

Of course I cannot talk about any of this. I'm a stupid, silly little medical student who has next to no experience in choosing medications (partially true); so who am I to give advice to people twice my age? Son, we'll just keep doing what we do and in time, we'll get better.


That's the curse of being junior staff; barely anyone takes you seriously.

All in all, Generation X's perception of Generation Y is quite biased and even though some of us are outgoing, risk-taking, technical gurus; not all of us are inappropriate, or have the intention of being condescending. Either way, we've all worked hard to get to where we are, just like Generation X has to get to where they all are.

Until their perception of us change, I'm afraid very little intervention will be effective. And by the time we're old enough to be taken seriously, the next generation will be seeking our attention.

Generation Y by Generation X