It sounds awful to me, too, but in casual conversations with medical professionals who have been through it (and in some cases while they were going through it) they very frequently defend the process. It doesn’t sound like Stockholm Syndrome or gate-keeping justifications either. They basically say that it’s the best way to see/learn the full progression of a case. Essentially it comes down to charts and records can only communicate so much and actually being there is how the real learning happens. I don’t know if I buy it, but I do know one thing — systems like this usually carry really value, or they wouldn’t be so persistent.

I'm fairly sure that's the norm almost everywhere. It's not just to prove they can take it, hospitals like to use students as free labor. I know it happens in Western Europe.