To my dear young friends out there who wish to pursue medicine, having an impression that medicine is as fancy as House, or as dramatic as Grey's Anatomy, or as adventurous as The Night Shift, or that you can have an easy and happy life while reading the Anatomy textbooks, going for holidays with your dear medical friends, or even enough time to sleep and eat and enjoy life, or mid-semester breaks to go home to your dear Papa and Mama or your far far away boy/girlfriend, or going for your friends' birthday parties and celebrating Christmas and whatnots. Let me tell you something.

NOT GONNA HAPPEN.

At least not until you figure out the trick to be a medical student and still be a normal happy student.

If you fail, well, you will be zombiefy (ya, this word should exist in the medical dictionary). 

To all the stubborns, if you still wanna have a life like Dr. House or the super hot docs in The Night Shift, I suggest you hit the gym and head towards Hollywood. 'Cause you know what? This world needs more entertainment that fools the public of the reality.

So, if you wanna be a doctor, 

# Number One:

STRIP OUT EVERYTHING YOU THOUGHT YOU KNEW ABOUT MEDICAL LIFE, 

'cause the truth is, you don't!

# Number Two: 

ASK THE RIGHT QUESTIONS.

Albert Einstein once said, "If I had an hour to solve a problem and my life depended on the solution, I spend the first 55 minutes determining the proper question to ask, for once i know the proper question, I could solve the problem in less than five minutes." 

Basically he's trying to say is, by asking the correct questions will bring you to the correct answers hence the correct path/way/solution/whatever you are looking for. If you ask a stupid question, you will end up having all the stupids in the world, and worse still becoming a stupid yourself. (If you did not get it, maybe you should re-consider the medicine option, like seriously).

There are a lot of questions that you have to ask yourself before going into medical school.

"Am I smart enough?"

"Do I have the qualifications academically and financially? If no, what can I do about it?"

"Why did I want to do medicine? Is it because of my peers, my boy/girlfriend, family, my siblings, my pride, the money I can earn, or my unreal fantasy?"

"Why must it be medicine? There are also other great jobs for me, right?"

But for me, the one question you would not only want to ask, but to make a vow to your answer is this:

"Am I gonna regret pursuing medicine?"

The principles I hold in life are simple. Be mature, be professional, be without regrets. 

As I strive to survive in the three years of medical school, and two more years to go, I realised one thing. Life is gonna get harder, regardless if you are a medical student, or an architect student, or a language student. Challenges are coming. Hardships will push you down. You will have plenty of reasons to slack off and sleep instead of completing your case write-ups. You will be in trouble with your peers and friends if you act childish and unprofessionally. You will lose the fire to continue and start questioning your decision for once entering medical school, realising it is too late to quit, thus starting a life of regret and shits. 

Do you want that to happen? Do you?

I would not say that these things only happen to medical students, but rather to anyone in any field who simply made stupid choices without real consideration. 

This world is a mixture of Yin and Yang. Points for and points against. List out a list of points for and points against to your decision of pursuing medicine. Is it worth the struggle because you know for a fact that this path is not gonna be an easy one. You will see dead people, dying people, smelly disgusting looking diseases that scar those poor people, corpse you have to dissect, organs you have to examine and by no means look appetising at all. You will have to listen to hours of stories of psychiatric patients, you will have to be good in summarising tons of contents into short, relevant case to present to your superior. And the list just goes on. Are you sure you can handle the difficulties? Some of my friends have quit medical school just because they realised they could not imaging working with dead bodies, or are just not strong enough to the idea of cutting up people. 

So, "Am I gonna regret pursuing medicine?" 

Normally medical students start doubting their decisions when they are in immense stress, and that can be many, but the most is sitting for an important examination. Students will be like "Why did I choose this path?" "Why did I wanna make my life so stress for those patients?" And if you have the right intention and mind to pursue medicine, you will instantly remember the vow you made to yourself.

For me, I promised myself to never regret pursuing medicine, because this isn't about me, but I'm studying all these, sacrificing my parties and sleeping time, and struggling through all these, just so that one day, I can help my patients who are in need of medical assistance. 

When I made that promise, I thought I could be superman or Jesus, helping anyone in anything, making them feel good, and becoming better and healthier. But after entering clinical years that I realised there is only so much you can do, and the rest is always just assumptions and smart guesses. Sometimes you have no idea what the heck is wrong with him, or why is her disease acting like that. As I remember my vow, to help my patients who are in need of medical assistance, is not just physically, but also mentally, emotionally and if able, spiritually.

Every humble (thus wise) medical personnel would know this quote. In medicine, we cure sometimes, we relieve often, we comfort always. 

Pursuing medicine is not just about head knowledge, but it is about the heart and soul and mind. Do you have the heart to empathise a late stage cervical cancer mother, knowing that she has only few months to live, leaving her three children and a mentally-retarded husband? Do you have the soul to rejoice as a baby is delivered under the immense contraction pain of the mother? Do you have the mind to understand and preempt the risks a patient is about to have if he enters that operating theatre? 

Once again, ask yourself, repeatedly, and just seriously think about this, because thinking and understanding is hard work too. 

"Am I gonna regret pursuing medicine? How sure am I? Do I really want this life?"

So, after stripping off everything you thought you knew about medicine, and reassured that you are 100% sure of pursuing this noble-and-prestigious-because-not-many-can-survive type of life, you should think of one last thing.

# Number Three:

DEVELOP A NEW MENTALITY AND SURVIVING SKILLS

This point covers a lot, from your mindset of how you engage with your problems to the ways you approach difficulties and to the set of skills you have or wanna have to develop solutions. I cannot give you a blueprint as to how and what should be done when you face situation A or Case B or Scenario C. Because in medicine, nothing is dead. Even your problems (patients) are very well alive. (Well, it wouldn't be much of a problem if your patient is dead right?) 

Therefore it is vital that you grow up from that highschool spoon-feeding mentality that the lecturers should teach you this and that, because learning is a life long thing, and your lecturers are also still learning, just that they know more stuffs than you and are qualified to teach, but does not mean they know everything. Since your lecturers are still learning and learning by themselves, what excuses do you have to not learn and expect everything to be taught? 

Becoming a medical student in a university should be proactive in learning. You have to find your own resources like websites, ebooks, videos to learn. You have to find your own pass year papers, ask lecturers yourself the questions and doubts, set up a group study by yourself. Basically, you are an adult learning a new set of knowledge and skills to work in a hospital. But to learn that knowledge and skills, you need to have a new set of mentalities and tricks up your sleeves to learn all the necessary things in that five years period. 

Have a renewed mentality of failure. Redefine failure. Because you will most definitely fail in some things in medical school, but it is okay. It is better to fail in small quizzes and assignments than to fail in the important exam. If you do fail in big exams, try again. By the way, you can only repeat maximum twice in medical school, because failing more than twice is a sign that maybe you should try other course, 'cause humans only got one life, and screwing it twice is not a risk we should take. Anyway, the failure in medical school is way different in highschool. It is no more just about grades, but also about the human-to-human interaction, how you work with your teammates and how you interact with your superiors. Failure is not just academic, but you can also fail in making peace with friends, or being a good team player. 

Once you have the right mentalities of study and life, and the skills to manage your time properly, you can have a normal life as any other students. You can do sports, go for a walk, do shopping, go for a short trip. It all boils down to whether you master the skills of study and play. A good way to start is to ask for advice from seniors. How did they manage their time? Are their ways useful and applicable to you? Seniors are a great source of advice as you can easily solve a problem they once faced themselves. From life hacks, to academic resources, to tips to survive in the hospital, who to look for help and who to avoid, all these useful tips can be greatly beneficial to you if you have a good relationship with the seniors. Of course, be careful when asking for help, because there is a fine line between asking for help and depending on others. 

Lastly, if you do become a medical student, remember that we are also humans and no god or superheroes. There are time we need rest and when we do, we should take a break. The only difference I can tell as a medical student in comparison with other courses is that medicine is slightly more demanding in terms of academic and exposure than others. However, that does not mean other courses are less stressful and thus easier, because every career is professional. So do not pride yourself of being a more successful or smarter student just because you did well in medicine. The only reason you did well in medicine is because it is, after all, the right course for you, and that, my friend, is because you have asked the right question. 

"Am I gonna regret pursuing medicine?"

*PS, what to expect?

Pre-clinical years are boring shits but important as hell because they serve as a foundation. If you are good with your basic science, understanding a certain pathophysiology of a disease in clinical years will be easy as ABC, and vice versa. 

Clinical years are exciting and exhilarating because we get to experience the life we will be having for the rest of our lives. Toughen up, be courageous and wise as you enter the clinical realm, because you will never know what you see. I promise you, that is way realistic and better than any medical drama can offer you. 

The best of luck, my doctor-friend-in-the-future. May you discover yourself in medicine.

[Photocredit to Oscar Lunar]