Before I delve into the multitude of reasons as to why I've set my heart on med school, allow me to preface this by saying that growing up, I never once thought about becoming a doctor. Ever. Well, I might've thought about it once or twice in my "younger and more vulnerable years" (name that reference!) as would every child upon envisioning their future, but I just thought, "Why bother? I'm still only a child! I'll leave that for future me to decide."
Sometimes I look back and think, "Darn you, young Aleisha! Darn you for being so nonchalant about your future!" And so the older me has the burden of deciding what exactly she wants to do.
I don't quite recall where exactly I drew inspiration from, but for many years did I want to become a lawyer. Specifically for the defence in criminal cases. I suppose it stemmed from my liking of politics and law when I first had exposure to it in Year 7. I was interested—intrigued—by the very mechanisms behind the relatively smooth state of affairs of society; by its laws, its regulations, its expectations and flaws. I, quite simply, yearned for more. And so I chose to study politics and law and continued to study it in Year 12 where I scored very well in in my WACE exams (far exceeding my own expectations, given the previous cohort's average was a strong 50%). By Year 12, my heart was pretty much set on law school. I wanted it, but was I passionate about it? I can't say with certainty that I was.
There's a difference between being passionate about our legal system and being passionate about wanting to have an active, more direct role within it. I might've blurred the lines between the two, hence my reluctance to decide on anything else within the pool of "generic jobs", as I like to call it. However, my studies in law have indeed informed who I am today. I have a clearer sense of justice as I came to acquaint myself with its intricacies and loopholes (it also helps to have learned a lot of what's within the Australian Constitution) and I pride myself in the fact that I do have a rather strong hold (well, stronger than most people my age) of Australia's political and legal system, despite only just scratching its surface.
It was towards the latter half of 2015 (my final year of high school) in which I started to question my choice of career. By that point I'd already told all my friends I wanted to practice law, that I wanted to defend criminals (innocent until proven guilty!), that I wanted to be a part of a judicial system I truly believe in (shout out to the Honourable Michael Kirby!) My, did How to Get Away with Murder and Suits make practising law look so easy. Sigh.
 |
Annalise-freaking-Keating, everybody. I implore you to watch HTGAWM
if you haven't already done so.
|
Indeed my inclinations to study law continued until I came to submit my university applications. I even went so far as to enrol myself in Curtin University's Undergraduate Law course. Honestly, I don't know where or what hit me to make me realise that I didn't want to practice law. I will forever have a passion for justice and the legal system, I just couldn't see myself as a lawyer. I still can't. I'm as timid as timid comes (something I'm trying to work on, mind you) and get easily offended so if the prosecution were to shoot down my arguments, I'd get overly defensive. Which isn't at all ideal in any setting, now that I think about it.
But I digress. Perhaps it was my realisation that law is something you do when and if you have connections. I've spoken to many about this and they've seemed to all agree. The main premise of law is in fact, network, network, network. It's who you know, not what you know. At least, that's my go-to-answer whenever somebody asks why I lost interest in becoming a lawyer. Alternatively, perhaps it was a matter of time which helped aid in my decision to not become a lawyer, perhaps my mind one day just clicked and said, "No, Aleisha, this isn't you. This job isn't for you." Whatever it was, I sat on my bed, my eyes nervously raking over the computer screen, and applied for a Bachelor of Science at the University of Western Australia.
Fast forward a year and a half and I can happily say that I don't regret that decision. Not at all.
I don't regret it because I'm studying something I actually enjoy, that I'm actually so, so incredibly passionate about. I love it. I'm glad I chose to major in Neuroscience, I'm glad that I got to have a taste of med school by looking at cadavers in my first year of university. I'm so glad because over time, I slowly came to set my heart on med school. I came to believe that med school is exactly what I want to pursue. In every possible way, in every possible form, I. Want. To. Become. A. Doctor. Because for once in my life, something felt right.
 |
| My good friend, the human brain. And yes, I did have to learn every. single. one. of these terms. |
Neither one of my parents hold a professional degree. No, they got married and had me instead. Long story short, they've made enough in their lives to be considered "well-off", for which I'm so grateful for everything they've done for me (a post for another time), but they didn't get as far as they did without adhering to one very important thing: hard work. I've grown up watching my parents wake up at sometimes the most insane of hours, only to return home absolutely exhausted with blisters on their feet and a lacklustre description of their day at work. But they persevered, they worked to provide for their two (incredibly privileged) kids and all I had to do in return was to take my studies seriously. Which I did and still do. I'm a hard worker thanks to them.
In saying so, however, never have my parents pressured me into a certain career of their choosing. They've been supportive of whatever I wanted to pursue—not minding my phase of wanting to become an architect some many years ago—from the very start. Perhaps even since my conception! Though I do sometimes think that their Asian-selves has been satisfied by a daughter who wants to do medicine instead of say, botany (sending my love to all the botanists out there, but it's the mind of the Asian parent, I tell you). Anyway, it was my first year university experience which truly propelled me to pursue med school with an additional level of certainty I didn't quite possess when I wanted to become a lawyer.
In fact, it was when I was amongst a lab full of cadavers that I began to fully appreciate—as well as understand—the beauty of the human body, along with all of its complexities (warts and all, literally). To pin it down even further, I'll reflect on when I was able to identify each organ with near-perfect precision (I identified a structure as the spleen to which my intuition was doubted, only to find out that I was correct), which I know seems nothing compared to what you actually need to know in med school, but it's something, right? At least for me, it was a significant step forward in terms of being certain of what I wanted.
So why do I want to become a doctor? Firstly I must apologise for the above ramblings (I had a lot on my mind that I needed to expel) but I felt that it was necessary to give an insight as to how I first settled on such a perilous journey to med school, where one paragraph would not suffice.
To keep it simple—seeing as I best wrap this post up soon—I want to elicit hope within my patients. I know that giving hope isn't exactly what a doctor is supposed to do, because they can't make promises, but I want to tell them that yes, you have a chance or no, sir, I'm sorry you don't have long but that mustn't stop you from enjoying how ever many months you have left because sometimes, when you're experiencing the darkest of days, hope is all you ever have. I want to sleep in on-call rooms and be the first person my patient sees whenever my pager goes off. I want to kick myself for not being able to suture a banana properly, but that won't deter me because I'm doing what I love: combining my passion of art and science. I want to watch as that shy, scrawny kid with the medulloblastoma grow into a confident, cake-loving adult who likes to garden, who likes to surf, who likes to binge-watch Keeping Up With the Kardashians; the kid I watched turn into an adult, partly because of me but mostly because of them. I want to see the kid who went from having no hope to all the hope in the entire world.
That's what's so good about being a doctor.
Warmest regards,
P.S. Phew! That was a lot of words to type and to read over. However, I've only just scratched the surface. In future posts, I'll perhaps add more detail (I've many more reasons than the ones stated) because what I've written contains nowhere near as much as I'm thinking.
No comments