playingdoctor | (no subject)

I should be in bed, and in fact, I was in bed, but something occurred to me that I figured out the math for and wanted to scribble it down before I forgot.

...Well, PARTLY why Simon keeps pissing him off. Part of it is that Simon is a bratty jerk, and Umeda has no patience for ... forget fools, Umeda has no patience, period, and he loves to mock uptight people.

Anyway. XD

Umeda's a doctor. He's gone through all the schooling, and, man, there's a lot of it. To be certified to work at a school is, I am PRETTY sure (from things I've read in other manga/anime that have school doctors; I don't know from anything else, sadly) the same degree you need to go into work as a general practicioner; he almost CERTAINLY has his bachelors, masters, and Ph.D. And if the programme's anything like the ones I've heard about, that means, during his graduate works, spending at least a year being cycled through every major field for a period of two months per field -- which means, yeah, he's done surgery before and can handle it, he just decided it wasn't the career for him. Psychiatry too. Etc. After being cycled through, he'd pick his field and finish his Ph.D in that. The usual things. He also took additional certification, as we know he's trained in chiropractic/physiotherapy, which is not part of the regular degree; it's a ceertification again and would probably take, I don't know, a year to complete (maybe more. I don't know. XD)

Umeda's 26 when the manga begins; partway through the manga he turns 27. From things Nanba says and the way he's generally established in the school (ie, all the students are used to him, there's no references to previous doctors, no comparisons made; even the students in the upper years are accustomed to him), he's been there for three or four years at LEAST; I'm betting on four, but it COULD be three. Which means he's had all his degrees AT LEAST since he was 23, possibly even younger, since he may have been a) been at the school as doctor more than three years at the start of the manga, and b) may have not got the job right out of college (though, since it's at HIS old high school, he probably did.)

We also know he went through high school at a normal pace and didn't skip years; he was 15 when he fell in love with Kijima, and turned sixteen during their second and last kiss (it was halloween then, whut XD, and his birthday's the 31st); after he'd turned 27, Umeda comments that he's been in love with Kijima Ryoichi for twelve years, and he was in love with him well before his first kiss. Anyway, yeah, that bit was in the middle years of high school, not approaching graduation, so assume he had a high school graduation at age 17 or 18.

I don't know if it's the same in Japan, and I'd want to check, but over here, undergrad is about four years, masters is about two, and Ph.D is about 6. That's if the student doesn't take more time, which is, well, always possible, especially at the graduate level. That's twelve years.

Assuming this is all correct, Umeda finished at LEAST twelve years worth (remember, he also has an additional certification or two) of university work in the course of approximately five or six years. At MOST five or six. Possibly LESS, even, depending.

Which, yeah, for all he bitches about work, Umeda DOES constantly overwork himself, but a lot of that's gotta be innate talent and skill and intelligence -- we know in high school, his classmates were always harrassing him to borrow his notes, so yeah. He had to have been top of his class then.

So .... yeah! Heh.

...it also means he IS actually good at fixin' people up, which is good to know. XD

Edit: I'd like to add that I don't know for SURE that Umeda took more than an undergrad; it's possible that's all that's required to become a school doctor. I seem to remember seeing references to other FICTIONAL Japanese high school doctors who had definitely gone through full college education, but I don't know if it's a requirement. And I had some info wrong (which is why I shouldn't type up at 6 am; I don't check my sources) -- at least here in Canada (don't know about Japanese still), they'd have undergrad + M.D. Now, looking over Asahikawa Medical School, it looks as if to be a certified doctor, you need to complete an undergraduate, and then do graduate degree work, but I can't tell how much of this is wonky english translations of the medical websites. It's more than possible that, yanno, he did it in the normal time, or eight years expected work in five or six, but either way, it's PROBABLY not as extreme as it seems and now I have a headache so anyway, yeah, don't take this as law, but take it as an interesting possibility. Anyway. IT'S ON THE INTERNET, SO IT'S PROBABLY NOT TRUE. )

EDIT 2: Sweet Conformation OHO ACTUALLY. Nagoya's faculty of medicine says they "assume all students enter into the school of medicine, doctoral course" and "implement an integrated education of two years for a master's course and four years for a doctoral course". Now, that doesn't necessarily guarantee that it's required for certification, but it's SOMETHING to dig my teeth into and in Japan, doing the right thing in education is considered pretty important -- god, Google is so not helpful. But it's helped inform me about the Imperial Household Law and female inheritance! Anyway. So it looks like I was close -- about 10 years then, for grad, and ma/ph.d