Just finished watching 'Awakening' acted by Robbie Williams. Actually, I've watched this show before but totally forgotten about it until I saw the ward in the hospital. Which goes to show that there are some differences between wards (despite all of them being white and rather dull).
What to write about this show... well, I'm really impressed by Dr. Malcolm Sayers (Robbie William). Despite not having any clinical experience (medical school does NOT count, trust me), he really tried his best working with patients. Even though most of them are ga-ga. It's very easy to just dismiss those patients thinking that they're not even alive and just treat them badly, as portrayed by some of the nurses and doctors. Though I don't blame them, it's probably very draining working in places like those.
However, what I like most about Dr. Sayers (or in real life, Dr. Oliver Sacks) is that despite the stress of working in a new environment, he still was very observant. What struck me the most during the show wasn't how 'doctorly' (ability to figure out diagnosis, give treatment and out they go) he was, but how by using basic skills like observation and analyzing, he sortof tried to find ways to help those comatosed patients. Maybe they sound the same to you so I'll try to put it in another way. Considering what I've been seeing at the GPs, patients come in with some problems; it looks like something you've seen before so very quickly you diagnose it, give them medications and management options, and out they go. No offense, but after a while, I get a feeling that I can train a chimpanzee to do that (no offense to the chimpanzee). But trying to see things in a different perspective, against the views of your colleague and doing your best to help those whom modern medicine have no answers for, that's tough.
And it reminds me of why I wanted to do medicine in the first place.
It's not to be the top scorer (though that would be nice). It's not to get straight A1s (though I won't mind getting one soon...). It's not even to get out and work as a GP/physician, earning enough money to survive and have a good life.
It's to learn the skills needed so that once I'm out there, I could find out what the people need (especially concerning psychology and neuro stuff) and to do research so that other doctors can do the grunt work of talking with patients and giving them the medications.
Now that I think about it, sometimes I wished I had taken pure science first before doing medicine. Doesn't matter, I can always do self-learning.
Where is all this coming from? Well, recently I've been feeling rather bored. Exams coming in less than a month, all I have to do is to start studying, do well in exams, then go home.
But, when I think about it, is that what I want to take out of medicine? Just good marks? Just to know all I need for exams, pass the exams and then wait to leave medical school? Not that studying for exams is bad, but even though it should be priority now, I shouldn't forget what exactly I wanted out of medicine.
After all, like what my father said - all I need to do to finish medical school is to pass the exams right? 50%. That's all I need. So why am I here?
Just an interesting trivia, movies like 'Awakening' and 'A Beautiful Mind' were one of the reasons why I choose to do medicine in the end, instead of pure science.
Current Mood: hopeful
Current Music: Ensei no Shizukesa (Mai Hime)
