He proceeded to explain in detail the most effective way to commit suicide by slashing one's wrist.

One of the reasons I decided against a career in medicine was my gross anatomy professor, Dr. Nguyen. Brilliant, acerbic, and impossibly demanding, Nguyen is a feared legend in the lecture halls of the University of New South Wales. According to the stories that were whispered to me in the cafeteria, he had been a highly respected surgeon in Vietnam before immigrating to Australia during the Vietnam War.

When he arrived, he was told by Australian authorities that his Vietnamese medical degree didn't qualify him to practice in Australia. It's my belief that this revelation drove Dr. Nguyen completely insane. It's said that he scored full marks in every single exam he took when he earned his medical degree the second time.

In one of his first lectures, he explained what he expected of us. "If you want to do well in this course, you must learn to go without excess sleep. I only sleep four hours a night. I don't dream - I have trained myself to fall immediately into a deep sleep. This is also possible for all of you. You must drink plenty of coffee and spend all night studying. Sleep for four hours, then wake up and keep studying."

The majority of the class tittered, thinking he was joking.

He didn't smile. His eyes remained dead serious. After a while, we stopped laughing and began to fear our slight professor.

Our final exam that semester tested our knowledge of the arm. Most of us were apprehensive, since there were over three hundred structures to name, detail, and understand. All semester, Dr. Nguyen had been hounding us to study harder, ever harder. His final lecture shocked most of us. He put a transparency of the arm on the projector, as he did at the beginning of most classes. "Today," he began, "I am going to show you what to do if you haven't studied hard enough for your exam tomorrow." He proceeded to explain exactly where to cut ourselves to commit suicide effectively.

"Remember not to start cutting here," he explained, pointing at the diagram. "You will encounter the radial nerve, and will probably pass out from the pain. You need to start cutting a little further over if you want to be successful."

I passed the exam but passed on the degree.