I.II.III – Starting Line
I.II.III
STARTING LINE
Picture this. It’s a crisp, sunny September day in 2015 and it also happens to be this fresh-faced idiot’s first day of med school, staring brightly at the battered, dilapidated building that would hold me hostage for the next two years – all full of goals and dreams and aspirations.
Aaah – how amazing it all felt! The campus all abuzz with excitement. Freshmen like us were just like puppies – so eager, so full of energy, so full of hope. I could hardly believe I was one of them. As I sat outside of faculty savouring one last cigarette before all hell would break loose, I found myself wondering whether this was all in fact just a dream. It had started out as this random decision I made on a whim, and despite all the hours I had poured into my studies, I was still in pure disbelief. As unfit as I felt to be there, I had to be. I had one singular thing on my mind – to become a surgeon. And nothing would get in my way.
One last drag and I walked into the old building, making me feel as if I had stepped back in time. As part of the promising litter full of hopes and aspirations, we were then herded downstairs into the lecture room where our first meeting was going to take place. It was exactly like you’d expect on the first day of school – this perfect mix of anxiety, nerves, excitement and giddiness. I stopped by the door to take it all in. The class, the students, the things I’d learn here – all of it.
From my vantage point, it seemed like everyone had already found their clique. I took a good look at them, sizing up the people I’d be spending the upcoming five years with. Back then, they were nothing more than a nuisance, a distraction, competition perhaps. Maybe there’d be my wife somewhere in there, nonetheless, these were people whom I wasn’t nearly interested in getting to know or have them become part of my life and me theirs. I sat at the very comfortable middle with those I dubbed as ‘normals’, away from the preppy, overzealous nerds that occupy the front rows, away from the wannabe uninterested coolios who stand at the very back. I wasn’t really up for making small talk or idle chit-chat. Instead I sat there, observing everyone around me. Cue Richard Webber’s intern speech:
I didn’t have much time to go on pondering as pretty soon, the room was flooded with all kinds of professors and senior students telling us about anything and everything we’re to expect during those years. It sounded a bit like the Kubler-Ross model if you ask me – denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. Some seemed disheartened, some indifferent, some ready for the challenge. I for one was part of the latter. I was ready for all of it.
“Any questions or concluding remarks?” goes one our future mentors, effectively snapping me back to reality from all my daydreaming. Needless to say, there were a couple of questions and concluding remarks – most of them stupid and unnecessary. I took a couple of deep, anger-infused breaths as I rolled my eyes so far my optic nerves got tangled up on themselves. “There we go…” I thought to myself resigning to five years of this – the unending questions by those who always strive to know more than our syllabus requires of us, those who want to show their face in order to get into the good graces of our professors, those who want to intimidate their competition with their ‘good questions’.
Exactly as I had prophesied – these people would just be a nuisance, a distraction, competition perhaps. But I didn’t mind that one bit. Because I knew. I knew that I’d achieve my goal of becoming a doctor. I knew that the upcoming five years would be nothing short of incredible.
Stay wild,
Marius
Post Scriptum
I know right? Med students who smoke… How stupid and hypocritical, huh? Agreed. Well, I started smoking way before I got into medicine – before I even knew I wanted to get into medicine for that matter. Not to mention, just because we’re in the business of health it doesn’t mean we always practice what we preach. I’ve since stopped (and started and stopped and started and…) and it’s an ongoing and constant struggle. That said, if I managed to stop, so can anyone. This message was brought to you by the NHS.