It is an inspiring quote, but I hope it's not because it seems to negate the value of winning. That kind of idea would appeal to someone like me, whose life has been more or less average so far, with its own victories and losses. Nevertheless I really hope that I'd be spending my life discovering one thing after another rather than simply fight many rat races.
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It's June 2011 and I am on a jetty in Vietnam sweating under the hot sun, waiting to board a cruise. I think to myself how wonderful it would be if life was laid back, with nothing to expect but endless relaxation, in a world where the future took care of itself.
In that world, I'd be working 5 day weeks, and I take full possession of my weeknights and weekends. I'd be earning just enough to support my mother and I and I'd be single. I'd go on holidays to cheap good places twice or thrice a year, with many other weekend road trips. And I'd be happy, living in heaven on earth.
And I have that vision in my head for a few days, as I sit on that luxury cruise sailing down the beautiful bay, even though my eye is badly inflammed. Because I am now world weary, with a combination of an unknown future, a long project and a psychopath dragging me down.
It is not something I'm fond of, with Medicine and my future role as a doctor becoming my only identity. They conveniently address me as "doctor" even though I'm not one- the old lady in church, my trekking friends, my relatives. They don't care if I appreciate good literature or Chinese history or classical music or The Beatles. I yearn for escape.
It is a few days later. We sit in a restaurant receiving bad news that our flight has been delayed and we can't go home. To pass the time we play card games and chit chat. By some subtle cosmic intervention the conversation veers towards Medicine:
My father had an operation on his left knee. The senior consultant left it to his junior to operate and the junior screwed it up. The moment my father awoke after the surgery he felt that something was not right with his knee. The next few years he suffered great pain because of the botched operation. Doctors gave painkillers to no avail.
My grandmother had a swollen red leg which the doctor thought was a diabetic foot. He had it amputated but it turned out to be due to deep vein thrombosis instead. All my grandmother's children wanted to kill the doctor. We tried to seek redress, but the hospital protected the doctor.
But this is not the usual Medicine conversation that makes me metaphorically roll my eyes. Instead, something cold and sombre has struck me inside. Something visceral. The hard truth that a dip in standards could cost life and limb. I look into my friend's eyes.
And thereafter I refresh my memory of how to treat deep vein thrombosis, with much help from the friend, whom I used to help in medical school: Give 3000-5000 IU of LMW heparin. Warfarin 5mg PO daily and overlap for 5 days until INR is above 2 for at least 24 hours. Aim to convert to clexane asap and seek senior help. Analgesics are needed too- assuming a severe pain in a 70kg adult I'd give im pethidine 50-150mg with a maintenance dose of 15-35 mg/hr.
Well's score predicts the probability of a DVT. http://www.mdcalc.com/wells-criteria-for-dvt
This is not the typical epiphanic moment where all my life's events fall into place. But I'm well awake from the dream of the laid back life, of the happy traveller's life.
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It's been a few days since I've returned from the trip. I've left the green plains and windy slopes for the sterile desks of the library and office. I spend some of my time reading in detail about abdominal pain, and meeting my mentor regarding the paper.
Later in the evening there is a Christian gathering whereby doctors are invited to talk about their lives. A beloved senior, now a resident, takes time off from work to talk to us, even though work beckons tomorrow, a Saturday morning. The discussion ranges from the nobility of the profession to its worst moments- fatigue and interpersonal conflicts. I look at the floor.
Had you a choice of your destiny, which would you choose? First, to be more of the happy carefree traveller unrestrained by the cares of this world, in full possession of his soul and identity. Yet, at the same time to have so little burden, to be so detached, that there is little to contribute or influence. Or discover.
Or would you rather tend towards the dark uncertain future, where lies the dirt of fatigue and demoralisation, yet studded with rare gems of learning and fulfilment?
Yet it may be said that being unhappy, the side-effect of commitment, is not a guarantee of discovery and achievement. But life has no guarantees.
And despite that we shall explore.
It is late. My words and sentences are slowly dissolving into mere dusty perceptions, and all I have left are vague dreams and memories.
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August 2007. I sit in a lecture theatre and the professor talks about the cell. I eagerly make notes in my Powerpoint handout. It is my first proper lecture in Medicine.
July 2007. My proud auntie has bought me a stethoscope, along with Guyton, Netters and Moore.
May 2007. I, fresh from a terrible eye injury, return to Pasir Laba camp in the middle of my sick leave to settle some admin stuff. The platoon happen to have just returned to the barracks and start congratulating and saluting me.
18 May 2007. I've spent the sick leave playing some computer games and watching the Champions League final, despite that injury to my eye. It's Friday morning today. In some discomfort I turn on the laptop and log on to the webpage and see "Medicine" beside my name. I ring up my classmate to ask what this means and upon confirmation we congratulate each other.
30 April 2007. Miraculously, Hotel Company has an off in lieu. I spend the day at NUS being interviewed twice, once by a group of elderly men, another by the nursing dean and a medical student. One of the men tell me I've done well. The dean and the student seem pretty impressed with how I've carried myself.
April 2007. We finish our exercise and declare that we've not brought ammunition. Amongst the chorus of voices I declare myself Cpt Dr Lee Jin Fu Marcus.
November 2005. I am in a brown uniform, huddling together with other wide eyed college students listening to an emergency physician talk about her life as a doctor. She has time outside her work to do community service and run marathons. It inspires me to be like her. It seemed so distant back then, that all that idealism had to compete for space with those thoughts about money and career advancement.
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