END OF FY II

Blink once, five years of med school over. Blink again, and suddenly, two years go by. Just like that, I had finished the two years of the Foundation Programme.

With my e-portfolio complete and my End of Year reports fully satisfactory, I was now a fully warranted, full-fledged doctor. Up until that point, the title I was oh so proud of had mattered little outside the four walls of the hospital. I mean, sure, over those two years, it had stopped ringing hollow as I gradually came to understand what being a doctor actually meant – the work, the responsibility, the weight of it all. Now, though, it was backed up by experience. Not just lessons learnt in med school, but years spent actually doing the job.

Two years of ups and downs. The highs that come with helping patients, doing a good job, being praised by your seniors, and, on rare occasions, saving someone’s life. The lows of being helpless in the face of problems you can’t really solve, failing to do right by your patients, disappointing your seniors, the exhaustion that piles up, and, all too often, the lives you can’t save. Two years of growth and development. Two years of bliss and ecstasy. Two years of misery and grief. And when all’s said and done, I wouldn’t have had it any other way. I’d relive every single damn moment of those two years.

But it was also time for change – time to move on. Looking back at my journal entries from my days as a junior doctor, it’s clear that it had all been one long struggle. A constant internal conflict between wanting to become an extraordinary doctor and wanting more out of my life. The person who had set out on this incredibly long, incredibly demanding, and incredibly wonderful journey had become someone he never even saw coming.

And with the promise of more, I found myself once again bursting with excitement to see what I’d make of myself on the next leg of the journey.