Start of BST1: a chaotic return to hospital life, battling bureaucracy, onboarding hurdles, and the reality of entering emergency medicine training.
FOREWORD
A journey through ambition, burnout, and rediscovery as a doctor steps away from medicine to rebuild identity, purpose, and a fuller life.
AFTERWORD
AFTERWORD After finishing this journal, I’ve once again come to realise just how much I’ve changed over the previous two years. I walked into medicine thinking I’d be doing it for myself – it was my one true passion, and furthering my knowledge was my main driver. It only took a few weeks for all that to change. As passionate […]
END OF FY 2
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 […]
Crossroads
II.IV.V CROSSROADS That’s how it went for the rest of the rotation. Work hard, work harder – no time for play. But I was fine with that. It’d be over soon enough anyway. At that point, I had my future all mapped out. I was hoping to pass my exam so that by the time I finished my Foundation Programme, […]
Sacrifice
II.IV.IV SACRIFICE My time in emergency medicine was… different. It was a period of growth and existential crises, one that forced me to reevaluate parts of my life that had previously grounded me. It wasn’t so much the medicine itself as it was everything that came with the job. Despite having come a long way in curbing my superiority complex […]
Resolute
II.IV.II RESOLUTE On most days while working at the Emergency Department (ED), I’d walk out of hospital with a huge smile on my face – the kind that comes about very rarely, usually when I’d be assisting on some cool surgery. But this was different. After even the most mundane shift at the ED, I’d step outside covered in goosebumps, […]
Emergency Medicine – First Day
II.IV.I FIRST DAY The day I started my rotation at the Emergency Department (ED), I could hardly believe it. It felt exactly like when I had started neurosurgery. First of all, this was gonna be my last rotation ever as a house officer. There I was, having barely even started, and I was already at the top of the junior […]