Common sense learning

During his course of practising orthopaedic surgery, James Michelson (p 602), learnt that when he hit his finger with a hammer his finger hurt. Professor Michelson is an advocate of common sense based medicine (CSBM)—as was one of his teachers at medical school, who told him that orthopaedic surgery is hard for many doctors to master because it requires them to exercise common sense. In the spirit of CSBM, Professor Michelson now knows that he should not hit his finger with a hammer—or a mallet, for that matter.

But one person's ideal learning style is another person's mental treacle. This is a …