Image credit: Author using ChatGPT with prompt ‘Create an image of a young Scrooge wearing a santa hat and holding a very large pizza box" by OpenAI, 2025 https://chatgpt.com
It was a cold winter’s night on campus and all through the halls students were busying themselves with their final assessments and exam preparation.
“Dear CheatGP, write a 1000 word essay …” Before Scrooge had time to complete the prompt, he heard a rat-tat-tat upon his door.
“Who is it?” he groaned, looking over his shoulder into the gloom of his spartan dorm room.
A cheerful, muffled voice piped up from the corridor. “Fred, from Paediatric Medicine 1000. We were wondering if you wanted to join our study group. We’re …”
“Study? Bah, humbug! Go study yourselves, cretins,” was Scrooge’s reply, as he turned back to the screen. “Now, where was I? Oh yes, a 1000 word essay on …”
Just then, a strange green mist began to seep from Scrooge’s screen.
“Oh, not this again!” It had been an eventful evening. “Where’s IT support when you need them?”
By this time, the screen had gone dark and the mist began to coalesce into a vaguely human form, from which an eerie voice emanated.
“I am the ghost of your career future.”
“No thank you,” responded the perturbed medical student. “I don’t need career advice. With my grades ...”
The apparition was not impressed and Scrooge rapidly found himself whisked through the air to a busy hospital ward a few years hence.
A little child by the name of Tiny Tim was propped up in the hospital bed, looking distinctly pale.
“Is there nothing more you can do?” his careworn father, Bob Cratchit asked.
“It’s out of our hands, now,” the nurse whispered. “If only he’d received the correct treatment ...”
Scrooge recoiled with horror as he saw his own writing on the prescription in the nurse’s hand. How could he have made such an elementary mistake? Did all those years at Medical School mean nothing? As he gazed over at the sickly child, the realisation dawned on him: Nothing indeed. His career, his title, his grades had all been a sham.
He turned to the impassive spirit and implored: “Is this what must be, or only what may be?”
“That’s for you to determine,” was the only reply.
And just like that, Scrooge found himself back in his dorm room, his half-formed prompt still on the screen before him.
“Oh no you don’t,” he cried out as he closed the page. “No more faking it for me. I can do this the right way – and Tiny Tim is going to get the best care that medicine can provide.”
And so it was that Fred, and his study group companions, got the biggest shock of their lives, upon opening the door to a smiling Scrooge, holding the biggest pizza they’d ever seen.
“Room for one more?”
Author note: In my spare time, I contribute to a British Council-sponsored story-telling project called "Resilient Voices" for young people in Gaza. Earlier this year, I helped some of them with a presentation at the International Day of Action for Academic Integrity and last month, we read "A Christmas Carol" by Charles Dickens together. Somehow, those two experiences collided in my brain, and out popped this little tale!
Dr Martin McMorrow is learning co-ordinator at the University of Notre Dame, Australia.
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