In this episode at SNEC x MEDI.CUE, I sat down with Professor Jodhbir S Mehta to do a proper “what if?” on medical training—like, if we could change one thing in the medical field, what would it be? Prof Mehta’s answer was super clear: undergraduate training needs a paradigm shift. We’re still way too focused on basic sciences and textbook learning, while the world is moving fast with data science, big data, AI, cell therapy, gene therapy, and even social media/IT. His point hit hard: textbooks are often outdated by the time they’re published, and if you don’t understand what’s happening now, you’ll be in “super big trouble” once you’re qualified. We also went deep into ophthalmology residency gaps—especially refractive surgery. Prof Mehta feels refractive should be built into standard residency because the field has changed massively in the last 7–8 years, and poor training is how we end up with unhappy patients and poor outcomes. Another big takeaway: research training should be compulsory in residency. Even if you don’t become a clinician-scientist, you still need to practice evidence-based medicine for decades—so you must know how to read papers, critically appraise evidence, and audit your own outcomes. As someone training in Hong Kong, I related a lot: research isn’t compulsory, and many of us end up scrambling to learn these skills during residency.