Sunday, September 01, 2013

The Dream

People who have known me my whole life will know that I tend to sound like a broken record when I tell the tale of how I have always known that I wanted to be a doctor. Or the story of how at 13 years old, I wrote an essay about how I wanted to be a neurosurgeon. 

The point is that I wanted so much to become a doctor my whole life that I was so sure that the moment I became one, my life would be complete and that the world will be whole again. 

The day I was MBBS-ed, it felt totally anti-climatic, at the most. 

The day I started my job as wide-eyed Cardiology House Officer, nothing dramatic happened either. 

In fact, it seems that the more I ponder on how much I wanted to be a doctor when I was younger, no matter what it took, I sometimes wonder how I could have known so well back then. How was it that things were so much less complicated when you were young? Whoever said that growing up and facing the real world and achieving your lifelong ambition would mean that you would finally be happy? 

These days, I don't doubt my choice in life. I could not imagine myself being anything but a doctor. 

But I do sometimes doubt my burning desire to be a Cardio God. And when I hear myself proclaiming out loud that I do not like ANYTHING - not surgery, not orthopaedics, not paediatrics, not anaesthetics, not elderly care, not even general medicine - just cardiology, each time I feel that the second voice of doubt echoing at the back of my head becomes louder and louder. 

Was I really so sure that I wanted to face a life of fierce competition and endless difficult exams and never-ending stress just to end up in a department of guys with egos the size of elephants? 

Last week, after my string of surgical nights, I could feel myself evolving from night to night. Thankfully, I did not make any decisions that killed anyone overnight, nor over the week. However, I did feel myself clenching my jaw harder from night to night. The climax was probably the third night when I had 20 admissions in one night and clerked 14 on my own. It became a bit of a joke when at 5 am I was still clerking people who had been referred to me before midnight, and I almost laughed aloud when at 645 am, the A&E SHO rang me with a "Sorry Alyssa, I have another one for you." 

At that point, I discovered a new me. I discovered that in surgery, I could see someone in 10 minutes when all investigations had already been done. Which was what I did at 645 am with bowel obstruction guy. 

I discovered that no matter how pressured a situation I was put in, I was not the kind of person to give up in exasperation or resort to tears. In fact, with my growing list of referrals on top of those I had not yet even seen, I was more determined than ever to push through the 12 hours, not sitting down for one minute and not stopping to even drink water. It was miracle that I did not faint at 8 am at trauma meeting and managed to present the cases I saw without fumbling. 

The horrified faces of the registrars and the others when they heard that I had seen 14 people in one night was apparent. And more than ever, they were wondering how I had not burst into tears at any point. That was when I realised I had become someone who was so adamant and so stubborn that I would refuse to cry even in the most dire of situations. I refused to let my weak side take over. And at the end of my set of nights, I wondered if I had turned into a fighter or just a robot who was so bitter at life that I refused to let myself stop and feel

And then there is this dream of being a Cardio God so badly that at this very moment, everything seems like a mere pipe dream. Heck, I can't even handle studying for the MRCP at this point and here I am fantasising about Cardiology. 

Someone once said that the best way to make a dream come true was to wake up. 

I need to wake up. 

Be it making sure I try hard as hell to pass these damn exams or to be realistic and make myself realise that Cardiology isn't all that. That perhaps it is more important that I remember to have a life as well. 

Vamos Shing!