II.II.VI – Out
II.II.VI
OUT
Over the next two weeks of my summer general rotation, my passion for medicine would only intensify. I saw all kinds of surgeries – some of which I’d be lucky to encounter again throughout my life. It was all I expected to see and then some. Patients that would forever remain immortalised in my memory.
Especially the one with the leeches. Yep, that’s right; leeches! Good looks apart, leeches secrete a variety of chemicals including anticoagulants such as hirudin they use to promote blood flow so they can feed after they latch on to their victims. The patient in question had an area of dying skin at the junction of several incisions on his abdomen which could be saved by these miraculous beings. Everyone in the room seemed to be squeamish, most especially the nurse handling them. Then there was me; excited at the prospect of holding one in my own hands. Not only was it something extraordinarily cool as a type of biological therapy, I was genuinely fascinated by the tiny critters.
Every day, I’d be faced with patients who would teach me a lesson or two – be it medical ones or those pertaining to anything else I’d have to deal with as a future health care professional. Like this 35-year-old lady who weighed some 300 kilograms and would come in every week or two with some sort of complication related to her obesity. Or the 22-year-old guy who let a lump on his scrotum grow bigger without seeking medical advice simply out of embarrassment until it was too late.
This was what I wanted to learn. Not just theory and facts. It was like I was living in a dream. By the end of it I felt like I was part of the team and that my third year in medicine would be more of the same. Or so I thought…
When I started my third year my dad had just died, Pedro had just left and the last thing on my mind was medicine. It wasn’t a matter of having lost my passion and drive so much as it was me needing a break from life itself.
It took less than a week for me to realise how what the rest of my clinical years would look like. The clinical rotations proved to be nothing like the one I had had over the previous summer. I was now part of a group of six med students, and whilst they were all great people, it made it easier for doctors to overlook us. Some treated us like crap, others barely even noticed us. The individual attention I was receiving during summer was something I could only dream of now.
Every time I opened my mouth to answer a question or to ask one myself, I’d feel as if I were robbing the rest of their own right to education. I would rather just observe than be seen as one of those cut-throat sharks everyone hated. As such, most of the time I’d hold myself back. Add to this all the bureaucratic BS that’s part of the course and the fact that the workload had multiplied by a gazillion times, and third year had finally caught up to its notorious reputation.
And that’s when I wanted out. I wanted out of the course so bad. I wanted out of everything. I wanted to be anywhere else. I needed to be anywhere else. I couldn’t take it anymore. I felt like I was suffocating. I felt like I couldn’t breathe. And so, I quit.
Hah, did you actually believe that? As if I’d ever quit medicine!
I just booked a flight to Colombia.