The Challenge

as we march nearer and nearer to our exams, it's inevitable that we stop and think "gosh! all these are so difficult!! i think it's beyond me!!"

true... all the things that are expected of us are all really difficult stuff... i would say quite super-human power stuff (n i'm so not a super human.. tt's why i'm struggling sometimes). we're expected to digest and remember pages n pages of notes n textbook, examine patients in 7 minutes, get all the signs and come up with a coherent presentation the next 3 minutes, take a history in 15 minutes and piece everything together, answer obscure mcq's tt test us on the last 3 lines of say pg 537 of kumar n clarke, know everything from med to GS to ortho, paeds, o n g!! it's crazeeee!!!

yup... all these are the challenges we hafta face before becoming a dr... and yet, when we finally get past all these challenges and step out into the society with a DR in front of our name, we find that we're faced with a totally different set of challenges!

All these challenges include things like doing procedures, resuscitating sick patients, coming up with diagnoses for patients, etc. and of all the challenges, i find that keeping ur professionalism towards mean and irritating patients is one of the most difficult. hey! we're also humans... it's really easy to react towards the mean with meanness... it's human nature! but our profession requires us to be super-humans again... disregard the patients' rudeness and not allow ourselves to react negatively towards them. or even better, continue to be nice to them after what they've said or done to you. yup... i think tt's what defines a doctor with strength and power... not whether he/she can diagnose the rarest disease.

i admire ppl who can display such professionalism... and yearn to emulate them! i've seen a few during my SIP posting... and also experienced a few occurrences myself too. it's really not easy and takes a tremendous amount of effort... but i believe it's still a worthwhile thing to think about and train up as time goes by...