Dear God,

Here I stand on the brink of a new beginning. You have blessed me truly and greatly. I am fearful. Give me the courage to face adversity and the grace to remain faithful. May you receive the greater glory.

Amen

filter

That which is hurtful.

Be not proud.

tired

Bring us not to hard testing.

I hope you're happy now...

overdue reflections

It's been 5 years (and a bit) since I went for the interviews that led to my entry into medical school. I can barely remember what happened during the same said interviews, but the motivation within me certainly wasn't all pure and blue-eyed good will. These 5 years have changed me and changed my perspectives, and working for the past 2 months has shaped me even more.

To begin, God has been with me and God has been faithful. Not that I always cared, or that it always occurred to me. To be frank, I didn't know if I wanted to do medicine. When I made the decision to take it up, I felt like I was running away. Struggling with the question of vocation, medicine seemed like running away from God, Till now, I still struggle with it, sometimes.

Looking back now I realize how proud I was. How naive, how highly I thought of myself. I'm not that selfless or noble. Like any other student applying for medicine, I anticipated questions and prepared answers for the interview. So when the inevitable "what are some of your weaknesses?" came, I regurgitated the usual cliche "I'm too much of a perfectionist" drivel. Such conceit.

I still am a proud person but I'd like to think that I've improved, somewhat (is that pride too?). Perhaps now if I had an opportunity to go for an interview I might say that my greatest weakness is pride. That it has blinded me at times and cost me mistakes I shouldn't have made. Like how sometimes I think I can handle patients on my own without supervision, or how I think I am better than so-and-so. Perhaps I might dare to admit that I frankly didn't have a clue that I wanted to be a doctor, that all I had in my mind was a romanticized ideal of what I thought being a doctor entailed. Because even now I cannot be certain that this is what I really want to do, much less the plan that God has for me.

Coming to 2 months of working life, I must admit that I enjoy it a lot more than I enjoyed med school. But at times it certainly feels like I'm fighting a losing battle against apathy. I am a duty bound person (equally a weakness as it is a strength), and nothing irks me more than irresponsibility. Mistakes are forgivable, unavoidable even. But repeatedly clearing up after others because they quite simply do not care is tiring. What makes it worse is when you see it in people whom you regard as friends. When I was young and stupid I used to think that doctors who went into private practice were all money grubbers. But increasingly I perceive that many of them truly want to help patients but have simply given up hope in the system.

Then again, I'm no better. So how should I respond? To be jaded and to give up? Or? Perhaps it lies in acknowledging that I'm not perfect and neither can I expect anyone to be. But yet to do so seems overly idealistic.

lessons

I have learnt a lot this month:
- to be thorough
- to think
- and most importantly that being blinded by pride will only lead to downfall.

4 weeks on

work isn't too bad after all....